tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72868284869280014992017-08-11T10:46:07.174-07:00libsoc blogsLibsoc Blogsnoreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-31609111301175145242017-08-10T12:55:00.001-07:002017-08-10T12:55:52.229-07:00Which Dictators to Condemn? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zWfLp2ZkJy4/WYy6Jt2uuXI/AAAAAAAAAx4/--cGXcixxXshvB6E9QdF61OiGSmTJHecwCLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zWfLp2ZkJy4/WYy6Jt2uuXI/AAAAAAAAAx4/--cGXcixxXshvB6E9QdF61OiGSmTJHecwCLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/01/nicolas-maduro-venezuela-oil-sanctions-hugo-chavez"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The unfolding situation in Venezuela</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is certainly a worrying one. Madurno’s attempts to rewrite the constitution, put in place by his predecessor Hugo Chavez has resulted in the house arrest and removal of opposition politicians and the violent put down of protest. These attempts by the Venezuelan government to secure what seems like ultimate power. People who have been reading my blog for any length of time will know that I am not an authoritarian socialist, and events such as the ones happening in Venezuela are always deeply disheartening. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet the response from the mainstream media in the UK has not been to ask for solutions to the current crisis but to direct their anger towards Jeremy Corbyn for expressing support for Chavez and Madurno in the past and to shout at Corbyn to condemn the violence that is happening there. This is despite the fact that Corbyn has said that he condemns ‘All forms of violence’ presumably including the violence by the Venezuelan government in his admittedly broad answer. Yet if you personally think Corbyn should have been more specific and straightforward in his condemnation that is down to interpretation. It is not a point I am going to linger on. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">So Why doesn’t Theresa May have to Condemn Saudi Arabia?</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While we may be witnessing Totalitarianism taking tentative root in Venezuela, there’s already a well-established family tree of despots that our government supports. This is a country that goes out of their way to oppress women, views homosexuality or being transgender as immoral and views the appropriate punishment for disobeying its oppressive traditions as public whipping or execution. While the UK government may stop short of singing their praises, it certainly supports them in deed. I am of course talking of the Saudi dictatorship. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In a way that is not dissimilar to what Madurno is trying to implement in Venezuela,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Saudi Arabia is ruled by an absolute monarchy where the King rules and makes laws by decree and both the head of state and the government – an unelected leader and de facto dictator. There have been no criticism of his despicable activities by the current UK government. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia’s worth is also measured in barrels of oil, western powers have historically meddled there in order to secure a fulsome supply of gasoline that so much of economy is based on. It does this by </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/10/uk-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia-can-continue-high-court-rules"><span style="font-family: inherit;">enthusiastically supplying Saudi Arabia with a well-stocked and plentiful arsenal of modern weaponry</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, regardless of the fact that the weaponry we supply is then used to murder children in neighbouring states like Yemen. In addition to this, huge amounts of British made weapons sold to the Saudis regularly find their way into the hands of terrorist groups like ISIS.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">We don’t just have deals with the Saudis</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Its recently been reported that the British government have quite possibly directly helped Saudi Arabia by giving Saudi agents training from the British police. </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-14-executions-uk-british-police-training-mp-letter-theresa-may-reprieve-a7852211.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This would have directly assisted the Saudis in their suppression of peaceful protest and their arrest of more than a dozen people, facing potential execution</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those arrested include Mujtaba al Sweikat who was arrested aged 17 for being the admin of a Facebook group critical of the government and photographing street protests and Munir al-Adam who was born with an eye and hearing deft and faces execution for saving messages from rioters on his phone. Other so called ‘juveniles’ who have received death sentences in relation to disagreeing with the monarchy are Ali al Nimr, sentenced to death by crucifixion, Dawood al Mahroon and Abdullah al Zaher both sentenced to beheading. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The arrest, detention and torture of these young people is bad enough, but the barbaric nature of their sentences is not something that any civilised county should support or ignore in their communications with Saudi Arabia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Any state that supports and trades with a country like this needs to have serious words with itself. These are not idle threats, Saudi Arabia regularly carries out torture and execution, usually in public. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">A Call for Action</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Far from distancing themselves from Saudi Arabia’s horrific actions, the Home Affairs Select Comitee has been told that hundreds of Saudi Arabian police officers were trained by the royal college of policing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>According to the BBC, there are plans to widen the training from forensics to cybersecurity, mobile phone analysis and CCTV.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A number of MPs including former Labour Leader Ed Miliband have written to Theresa May to urge her to ‘personally urge’ the Saudi royal family to halt the executions. There are also numerous online petitions addressed to both Theresa May and Donald Trump, the most notable one being from the charity and anti-death penalty group </span><a href="http://www.reprieve.org.uk/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reprieve</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, asking them to intervene.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As you can tell however, these criticisms have entirely fallen on deaf ears. It seems our government would rather direct their anger at Jeremy Corbyn and his somehow half-hearted response to events in Venezuela. This is despite the fact that neither Corbyn nor our government have any real control over Madurno’s actions. Meanwhile they polish the ego of a rogue state in all but name. Standing passively by while they commit heinous atrocities on their own people. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May has even gone to the length of defending the Saudis activities on a global stage, suppressing a recent report into the funding of extremism whilst denying that her motivation is to protect arms deals. Arms that may very well find their way into the hands of terrorist groups that we and other western nations are sending our own troops to fight. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is true that all forms of tyranny, whatever form they take, should be condemned. While you may or may not be convinced that Corbyn has done that with Venezuela, I know wholeheartedly that he and other political leaders have rallied bitterly against the actions of the Saudis. Yet May and her government continue to turn a blind eye to the facts that are laid out before them.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-36133157748026712972017-08-03T13:54:00.000-07:002017-08-07T14:12:03.929-07:00A.1 What Does Libertarian socialism mean? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a7d5LCQoHFs/WYOKHzcUWUI/AAAAAAAAAxo/wZs3w9Q5JEclEzq0p4ank8rAmixmgMOcwCLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a7d5LCQoHFs/WYOKHzcUWUI/AAAAAAAAAxo/wZs3w9Q5JEclEzq0p4ank8rAmixmgMOcwCLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"></span></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This first section of my guide to Libertarian Socialism will look at what Libertarian Socialism is and what it stands for. Ultimately it aims to create a society where individuals can cooperate freely together as equals. It follows from this that Libertarian Socialists oppose the unjust or unnecessary exercise of authority, instead emphasising more cooperative, non-hierarchical types of social, political and economic organisation. </span></span></span></span><br />&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, Libertarian Socialism is a usually misrepresented idea. Many people think that giving people more power over the economy and political systems means ‘chaos’ or ‘disorder’. This process of misrepresentation is not without historical parallel. For example, in countries which have considered Absolute Monarchy necessary, the entire concept of democracy or republicanism must have been seen to imply disorder or confusion. Those with a vested interest in preserving the status Quo will obviously wish to imply that opposition to the current system cannot work in practice, or that a different type of society will lead to chaos. </span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Libertarian Socialists wish to change this view so that people will see that Cooperative and mutually beneficial organisation are both possible and desirable. This guide is part of a process of changing the commonly held ideas regarding these concepts and there meaning. Libertarian Socialism is not an extremist ideology and our only enemies are the charlatans in power, bigots and exploiters.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have seen the damage that misrepresentation and distortion of certain ideologies can do. In 1927 in the US, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco were executed for a crime they did not commit. Essentially, they were killed because they were foreigners who held the value of Libertarian Socialism. So this FAQ will attempt to correct some of the misunderstandings or distortions that Libertarian Socialism has come under by people who do not understand our ideas, large sections of the media and ideologues who wilfully misrepresent our ideas for political gain.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What Does Libertarian Socialism Mean?</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One Common misconception about Libertarian Socialists is that we are against authority in all aspects of life. While this is true of egoists (a small section of the individualist anarchist movement) you get very few Libertarian Socialists who believe in Stirners theory that all rules and regulations are fictional ‘spooks’. Instead many of us just reject the unjust use of authority. You will see what this means later.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For a full definition of Libertarian Socialism we need to look at these terms in isolation from one another, paying attention to their historical meaning. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">LIBERTARIAN: someone who believes in freedom of action, expression and thought. Basically someone who believes in free will. Understandably then, Libertarian may also refer to general scepticism of authority. Specifically authority that seeks to limit peoples free will.&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">SOCIALISM: a social and economic system where the producers possess a means of influence over their workplaces and are able to reap the rewards of their labour. Socialism in a political sense also refers to giving people equality in the way decisions are made.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, put simply, Libertarian Socialism is a political idea that believes in freedom of action and thought, in which all people have&nbsp;a&nbsp;say over the political&nbsp;decisions that effect their lives,&nbsp;as well as the right to reap the benefits of their labour. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet this is still somewhat vague so let’s elaborate. Arguably the most obvious source of hierarchy we face today is hierarchy from government. Again, as a movement based on freedom of thought Libertarian Socialists will have different views on government. However, we will all&nbsp;be opposed to forms of government that limit liberty such as mass surveillance or war. Many of us are happy to support candidates like Jeremy Corbyn who offer a safety net to protect against the worst excesses of capitalism. Yet as democratic, non-Hierarchical networks of mutual aid grow, governments should play gradually less and less of a role in society, and issues such as transport, housing, health and the environment should be put more in the hands of the ordinary people that they directly affect.</span></span></div></span><div align="justify">&nbsp;</div></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We apply the same logic to capitalism. We support unionisation for higher wages and better working conditions of course. Yet we are in favour of the establishment of more cooperative enterprises where thee people who do the work have a direct say over working conditions, and how the produce is manufactured and distributed. In this situation, wealth is distributed amongst the people who create it. Again, Libertarian Socialists support the minimization of hierarchy and the strengthening of democracy in the workplace as well as in daily life. I aim to elaborate on our views on&nbsp;government and capitalism later in this series. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall, Libertarian Socialism&nbsp;is in favour of the strengthening of equality and freedom in all aspects of public life. In the next Instalment, I will explain some of the attempts to distort both the terms 'Libertarian' and 'Socialism' and why the ideas name makes sense in the original context of both these beliefs.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-71457205808012947132017-07-12T14:18:00.000-07:002017-07-12T14:19:30.660-07:00Libsoc Blogs: In Retrospect<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P-YoNNTe3J4/WWaRbAlOTeI/AAAAAAAAAxE/YGTGtOVFsn4OF7Af-Qs16M5Kw23qoCzxQCLcBGAs/s1600/220px-Wallst14occupy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P-YoNNTe3J4/WWaRbAlOTeI/AAAAAAAAAxE/YGTGtOVFsn4OF7Af-Qs16M5Kw23qoCzxQCLcBGAs/s1600/220px-Wallst14occupy.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I want to begin this blog post by offering a short note of thanks to my followers, while there may not be many of you I appreciate you taking some time out of your lives to read what some random blogger on the internet has to say about politics. My audience is a mixture of libertarian socialists, Marxists, social democrats, anarchists, one or two of you might even be open minded liberals. While I don’t expect all of you to always agree with what I have to say, having a space to voice my opinions is important to me. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So to the main point of this blog post, for that is what it is. I am not going to beat you over the head with a 2000 word essay style piece. And as time moves on I will be endeavouring not to do that particularly frequently in the future. Those of you that have read my blog post for any amount of time will know that they tend to be (over?) long and meticulously researched. I am slightly disappointed with the standards of my very early blog posts and have since endeavoured to make my posts as comprehensive as humanly possible. </span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, I do have a life outside of libsoc blogs. Without going into too much detail, I am now going into my final year of university, and have other worry’s I need to think about. In addition to this, I want to explore other creative endeavours other than libsoc blogs. I have hinted in the past that I am a huge fan of music and film, and aim to develop my skills and knowledge of these subjects. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Libsoc Blogs is not going anywhere, it is just that I aim to make my blog posts snappier and…just…well…BLOG LIKE!! For those of you that enjoy the essay style pieces, there will be times when a political issue comes up that is so big that I can’t contain it in 500 words, so look out for them! Also I am still going to be putting lots of research into my blog posts, but I am not going to let it consume me.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are also some thematic changes that I want to introduce to this blog. If events going on in the world would only calm the fuck down a little bit, I could write more theoretical posts on subjects like ‘explaining the political philosophies’ or ‘understanding libertarian socialism’. That said, we could have another general election soon so I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am not about to start taking a back seat on politics, changing my opinions or begging for donations. But I am going to change the way I do things here.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once again, thank you for all your support and keep up the good fight!</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-46044506531996154122017-06-28T11:34:00.000-07:002017-06-28T11:34:14.313-07:00Theresa Mays First Queens Speech is an Absolute Shambles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w5UrGhxNISY/WVP2ftbgIWI/AAAAAAAAAww/UuOz_tCICz8vBK7xuaVx7QN0Y4NWKvwzACLcBGAs/s1600/Queen-speech-819196.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="590" height="189" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w5UrGhxNISY/WVP2ftbgIWI/AAAAAAAAAww/UuOz_tCICz8vBK7xuaVx7QN0Y4NWKvwzACLcBGAs/s320/Queen-speech-819196.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa Mays first (and very possibly last) queen’s speech was very clearly an absolute disgrace for anyone who read it. As we expected from Theresa Mays weak and unstable minority government, the speech contained a notable absence of stuff they promised in the manifesto, an absence of details on the Tory-DUP deal, posturing over the subject of Brexit and, as one might expect from a government led by two holistically right wing parties, a sizable dose of authoritarianism. It really was nothing more than the dying breath of a directionless charlatan with no ideology other than the desperate desire to cling on to power. </span></span></div><br /><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tory – DUP deal</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40219030"><span style="font-family: inherit;">delayed the queens speech in order to buy herself time to make a deal with the DUP</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. The queens speech took place last Wednesday, and at the time of writing Theresa May has only just finished off cobbling together a deal with the Northern Irish far right fanatics, that we don’t even know the full details of yet.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Regardless of the timing however, the fact that Theresa May is willing to make a deal with the DUP says a lot about her priorities. John Major, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have all refused to do deals with the Democratic Unionists in the past: this is partly because the party have frankly Stone Age views on many subjects including gay rights. It is in larger part due to the fact that making a deal with any Northern Irish party would risk throwing the northern Irish peace process between the unionists and the nationalists into chaos. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By forming this coalition, Theresa May has decided to stick two fingers up to her more politically neutral predecessors and the architects of peace in Northern Ireland, so that she can gain a short term advantage of staying in power before her own party inevitably boot or out or a general election has to be called. Also, by making a deal with the former Ulster Defence League, May is making a complete U-turn on her accusations that Jeremy Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser for speaking to the Sinn Fein. She really is willing to sling anything on her bonfire of vanity to stay in power.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Tearing Pages Out of the manifesto</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May actually started ripping pages out of her manifesto a long time before the election result. As soon as it started to look like the Dickensian policies on social care would lose them voters The Conservatives started back peddling with all the force they could muster on these policies, basically by pretending they never existed. It was not until the queen’s speech however that the manifesto started looking like such a wafer thin document. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://fullfact.org/health/what-dementia-tax/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Speech contained no mention of the Tory’s depraved plan to impose a 100% stealth inheritance tax on people who dare to commit the ‘crime’ of getting Dementia in their old age</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Also scrapped, as far as social care is concerned, were the plans to scrap the pensioners triple lock and to means test winter fuel payments. Presumably this is because if the Tory’s actually carry through on these plans, they will isolate their core demographic to such an extent that they continue to lose seats. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t just the social care policies that were missing. The pledge to scrap free school meals and provide infant school children breakfast at 6.8p per day was also bunged into the ‘to cruel to win support’ policy pile. The plot to bring back fox hunting was predictably erased out of existence, as most voters rightly view the practice of ripping wild foxes apart with packs of dogs to be too barbaric. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Other things that were dropped were the promises of 10,000 more mental health nurses (impossible after Theresa Mays scrapping of NHS bursaries drove 10,000 trainee nurses out of the profession in a single year), the plan to nick Ed Milibands energy price cap idea, and the plan to scrap the independent Serious Fraud Office in order to give the Tory’s control over financial corruption cases</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Brexit U Turn</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May has been warned in no uncertain terms by dozens of her Europhile Tory backbenchers that an economically ruinous ‘no deal’ Brexit strop is now firmly out of the question. As a result of this internal Tory rebellion the Queens speech makes absolutely no mention whatsoever of her diplomatically inept ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ threat to sabotage our own economy if the EU don’t cave in to our ridiculous demands. Instead, all we get is another platitude about making a success of Brexit.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The problem this is left Theresa May with is that she is now Torn weather to do the bidding of the hard right Eurosceptic MP’s like Ian Duncan Smith or Michael Gove or to tow the line of the Europhile Tory MPs. She can’t support one faction without severely upsetting the other. What this means is that If Theresa May manages to get her queens speech through parliament, she is going to have to perform some serious political acrobatics to try satisfy two ideologically incompatible factions, both of which will have the power to bring Theresa Mays weak and unstable government down at pretty much any point. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Attacking democracy</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One particularly horrifying announcement in the Queens speech is that the Tory’s are actually intent on continuing their anti-democratic effort to completely bypass parliament and rewrite the laws of the land as they see fit, despite this being initially struck down in courts. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>"A bill will be introduced to repeal the European Communities Act and provide certainty for individuals and businesses’’</em></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The anti-democratic Tory repeal bill is an affront to democracy in so many ways. Amazingly though the Brexiters who never stopped banging on about the importance of parliamentary sovereignty, are now cheering Theresa May’s efforts to bypass the UK parliament on Brexit, in another astounding display of doublethink. The only defence the Brexit minister David Davis has offered to support this anti-democratic power grab is that there isn’t time to do it properly so we should time to do it properly, so we should forget about Democratic scrutiny and trust the Tory government to rewrite laws with no democratic oversight. Only the most hypocritical of Brexiters could possibly try to argue that this is a price worth paying to end the supposedly anti-democratic influence of the EU. Either you believe that parliament should be sovereign, or you believe that government ministers should be allowed to make up laws as they go along. You can’t just simply believe both unless you are immune to cognitive dissonance. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Attacking Internet Freedom</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May is absolutely fixated on controlling the internet. She piggybacks this right wing authoritarian agenda onto every single terrorist attack, even when there is no evidence whatsoever that the attacks could have been prevented by revoking internet freedom. There was yet more of this authoritarian posturing littered throughout the queens speech</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>"A commission for countering extremism will be established to support the government in stamping out extremist ideology in all its forms, both across society and on the internet, so it is denied a safe space to spread."</em></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If Theresa May had any real concerns over public safety from terrorism then she would use existing legislation to prosecute the appalling hate speech and glorification of terrorism that goes on in places like the Britain First hate group, and she certainly would not have let known jihadists to go completely unwatched as they planned and executed their deadly terrorist attack. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The true reason Theresa May hates internet freedom is because it gives ordinary people the chance to debate politics, express their opinions and talk about subjects deemed to be outside of the mainstream media bubble of acceptable subjects for political debate. May lost her majority because alternative news sources are allowing people to break down right wing propaganda tropes, and find out the truth from themselves. Stamping this media revolution out now is an impossible fantasy, but since when has realism been something that Theresa May has ever considered in her calculations before?</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Britain for Sale</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyone who understands the woeful Tory track record on investment should realise that the parts on investment in The Queens speech are blatantly dishonest. Since 2010 the Tory’s have ruthlessly and recklessly cut back on infustructure meaning that the UK is getting left further and further behind in the global economy.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The UK spends only 1.7% of GDP investing for the future, when the average amongst developed nations is 3%. This deliberate ideologically driven under-investment will have devastating consequences for our future economic prospects. When the Tories talk about ‘attracting investment’ they don’t mean they’re going to invest in the UK economy at all. It means they’re going to go around the world begging countries like Qatar, Oman and China into buying our public infustructure. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In November 2016, Theresa Mays government handed our publicly owned aviation fuel distribution network directly to the governments of Oman and the UAE. In March 2017 the Tory’s handed the Southwest rail franchise to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>the government of Hong Kong, and later in March 2017 Theresa May begged and grovelled in front of the Qataris for them to buy more British infustructure. Don’t Trust the Tory’s on investment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Any MP with the good of the UK at heart will vote against Theresa Mays shambolic Queens Speech. However, most Tory’s will put their own interests ahead of the nation a whole, meaning that it is only rouge Tory and rogue DUP MPs who have the power to prevent May from forming a government that is both full of malicious intent, but also so weak and unstable that they will be completely unable to run the country or the Brexit negotiations effectively.</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-68012841705473765902017-06-25T13:30:00.000-07:002017-06-25T13:30:10.143-07:00Why the Grenfell Tower Tradgedy is Political<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qnKeWkNzIr0/WVAc5PS8Z_I/AAAAAAAAAwg/mr1kcEf32q42xwi7pQljvpjzT06NIQi-gCLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qnKeWkNzIr0/WVAc5PS8Z_I/AAAAAAAAAwg/mr1kcEf32q42xwi7pQljvpjzT06NIQi-gCLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been cautious writing this article, as it clearly involves ‘politicising a tragedy’. At least, that is the impression I get from all those demanding we completely separate the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy from the numerous political issues which surround it. Of course, what the phrase ‘don’t politicise a tragedy’ is usually used to do is to silence anyone trying to hold the government to any sense of responsibility for a tragedy. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Throught this blog post I aim to point to how the Tories sickening ideology of pandering to rich, private investors and their neglect towards investing in public safety played a large part in causing the Grenfell tragedy, and how unless we learn from such gross negligence, tragedies like this will happen again. To clarify, I am not saying that these were the only factors in causing the fire. A statement like that would be practically impossible to prove. However, it would also be completely unreasonable to refuse to hold anyone to account over this terrible tragedy. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The ignored Block Fire Safety report</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Block Fire Safety report was produced after the Lankanal House Fire in Camberwell cost the lives of six residents. It recommended the instillation of sprinklers in 4,000 tower blocks across the UK and was completed in 2013. Since then, </span><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-mays-chief-staff-sat-10620357"><span style="font-family: inherit;">a series of Conservative housing ministers, including the current chief of staff Gavin Barwell, as well as Brandon Lewis, Kris Hopkins, and Mark Barwell, have constantly sat on this report and ignored concerns</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, giving the pathetic excuse of ‘we are looking into it’ every time they are cornered on it. The Grenfell Tower fire is exactly the kind of tragedy the ignored report was intended to prevent. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from this report into the measures the government could take to prevent tower block fires, </span><a href="https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/kctmo-playing-with-fire/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">there is also a heart-breaking blog post from the Grenfell Tower residents group</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">warning about the lack of fire safety measures in the block and the fact that residents had actually been advised to remain inside their properties in the case of fire, which would have almost certainly cost residents their lives. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Fire Service Cuts</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since they first got in power in 2010, the Tory Party have been slashing the nation’s fire service. Between March 2010 and March 2016 the Tories axed 9,668 fire services jobs and the cuts have been going on since. The Tories have already slashed the fire service by 30% since the 2015 general election. By the time of that election, the Tories had closed 39 fire stations, including 10 in London that were shut down the same week that the taxpayer owned RBS announced an outrageous £607 million In bonuses for their staff despite having lost £5.2 billion that year. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The closure of fire stations and the significant reductions in staff and vehicles at remaining stations mean that response times have been soaring all over the country, the average response time now in cities has increased from 10 minutes to thirteen minutes. As is clear by the Grenfell tragedy, people are dying because of these cuts. It isn’t just Kensington. The government’s own statistics reveal that the number of fire related deaths soared by 17.4% in a single year between 2015/16. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whatever benefit people think they are getting when they vote for a Tory government, must at least realise that people’s lives are more important. If the Tory’s again fail to learn from their mistakes we will see a repeat of Grenfell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Making Homes unfit for Human Habitation</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In January 2016 The Tories notoriously voted down a Labour Party Amendment to their bill that would have required landlords to ensure that the properties they rent out are ‘fit for human habitation’. 71 of the 319 Tory MP’s to shoot this requirement out of the water, are registered as landlords on the Parliamentary register for members interests. </span><a href="https://politicalscrapbook.net/2016/01/housing-bill-73-mps-who-voted-down-fit-for-human-habitation-clause-are-landlords/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For a list of all the MPs who voted down this requirement I recommend taking a look at political scrapbook’s post on the issue.</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In light of the Grenfell tower fire and the fact that a succession of Tory housing ministers sat on a report into Tower block fire safety, its abut time people woke up to the fact that the Tory party doesn’t give a damn about housing. They oversaw the lowest rate of housebuilding since the 1920sand the most unaffordable house prices in history, but to them that’s all good because the higher the demand for housing, the faster the inflation of their own personal property portfolios, and the higher rents they can charge. These people are far too removed from reality to give a damn.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Sprinkler Question</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It has emerged since the Grenfell Tower fire that a former Tory housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, </span><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-minister-warned-beefing-up-10622601"><span style="font-family: inherit;">warned MPs about beefing up fire safety regulations, because it could discourage housebuilding</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. This was despite the fact the Lewis openly admitted that introducing sprinklers could literally save thousands of lives, yet didn’t want the government to encourage sprinkler use because ‘that is the job of the fire services’.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So by Tory logic, the first duty of government should be to allow private housebuilders to build houses, rather than to ensure that some of the countries vulnerable and poorer residents don’t fry to death in a horrendous tragedy like Grenfell. All Lewis’ statement amounts to is that ‘I would like to save the lives of thousands of citizens, but I think some private housebuilders might be a bit put off if we tell them that they have got to make the buildings safe’. Classic case of the Tory’s putting their own interests, above the interests of the nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Cladding Question</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you haven’t heard flammable cladding was stuck all over the surface of the Grenfell Tower block. This was manufactured by a company called </span><a href="http://omnisexteriors.com/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Omnis Exteriors</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. In 2015/16 Omnis reported profits of £1.2 million. The kind of plastic filled cladding Omnis has profited from selling has been banned in countries like Germany and the US for years, and has been implicated in high rise fires all over the world, but somehow the British Government never saw fit to ban the practice of sticking highly flammable materials over high rise buildings.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What makes this more outrageous is that Omnis promises flammable cladding for just £2 extra, per square metre which rises some serious questions. These are 1) why did Omnis continue selling highly flammable cladding when they had the capacity to produce a non-flammable alternative? 2) Why was flammable, plastic filled cladding not banned in the UK, when it has been implicated in fires all around the world and banned in other countries with advanced economies 3) who signed off on the decision to save an estimated £5,000 in renovation costs by choosing the flammable cladding for Grenfell tower, rather than the fireproof version?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The answer to the first question is that there was nothing to stop them. The answer to the second question is that public safety is terribly incompatible with Tory Lazzeiz Faire ideology. The answer to the third will surely come out at some point during the criminal inquest. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you can’t see how the Grenfell fire tragedy is tied to politics in so many ways, then you must be so wrapped up in the blanket of ‘don’t politicise a tragedy’ that you are blind to the reality around you. People have died because of apathy from the elites to the effects of their monstrous cost cutting exercises. Politicizing this tragedy isn’t a choice, but a necessity.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-57230673329910933082017-06-15T13:36:00.001-07:002017-06-15T13:36:41.486-07:00Weak and Unstable<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kicVkAM1AZ0/WULvwh9w1oI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/UonITqv46iUgwEvytP9JAxu4aUr7PJKtQCLcBGAs/s1600/Theresa_may_PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="960" height="175" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kicVkAM1AZ0/WULvwh9w1oI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/UonITqv46iUgwEvytP9JAxu4aUr7PJKtQCLcBGAs/s320/Theresa_may_PM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If anyone received a Tory flyer through their door you will remember that it contained big letters containing the words ‘Theresa Mays team’ on the front rather than the somewhat less inspiring sounding ‘Conservative Party’. You will also remember that it had the supposedly reassuring words ‘strong and stable’ plastered all over the document, like a profoundly<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>dishonest version of the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy (for those of you that get the reference, your welcome). Of course this is nothing surprising, the Tory campaign was full of reality defying propaganda. Another of the terms that the Tory’s kept using to discredit their opponents is the bitterly ironic ‘coalition of chaos’. At the time this may not have seemed as obvious to the people who actually voted for Theresa May, but how obvious is it now?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Theresa Mays Team</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When Theresa May won the Tory leadership contest following David Cameron’s resignation by default after bullying her rival out of the leadership race, </span><a href="http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104078"><span style="font-family: inherit;">May attempted to re-do Thatcher’s infamous St Francis of Assisi speech by saying how much she cared about the under privileged in society</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. This was before immediately scrapping university grants as one of her first acts as Prime Minister. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Six months later, after repeating ‘Brexit means Brexit’ a million times, Theresa May went into full Blue-KIP mode by launching her propaganda coup to the EU that if they don’t cave in to her demands for market access for her corporate buddies, she would collapse the negotiations altogether and turn Britain into a giant offshore tax haven. </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/19/crush-the-saboteurs-british-newspapers-react-to-general-election"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The tabloid press absolutely adored this, and started labelling anyone demanding a softer approach to the negotiations ‘Saboteurs’</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After calling her self-serving snap election, presumably eager to distance herself from her own party’s record, </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/08/conservative-party-no-now-just-theresa-mays-team/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">May rebranded the conservatives ‘Theresa Mays team</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">’ with all mention of the word conservative either reduced to small fonts or eradicated. This was clearly a move by Lynton Crosby and other PR consultants to appeal to Labour and Lib Dem voters who would normally never dream of voting Tory. This ranked of insincerity and relied purely on the presumption that centrists and left leaning voters are so stupid that if you change the words on the propaganda, they will forget which parties they are voting for. On top of that Theresa May was adopting this image whilst telling her friends in the media that the Tory’s intend to launch an ultra-hard Brexit. Not only was this an insincere attempt at political marketing that millions have come to despise, but it is shockingly at odds with the Tory’s own stated Brexit strategy.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Strong and Stable</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May called this election with the supposed aim of ‘strengthening her hand in the Brexit negotiations’ and ‘stopping opposition parties from obstructing Brexit’. </span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/02/house-commons-votes-trigger-article-50-494-122-full-list-labour-rebels"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Never mind the fact that the largest opposition party in the House of Commons voted in favour of triggering article 50</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, the lie was successfully constructed that Theresa May needed to strengthen her hand and many conservative voters fell for it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course there are plenty of people who didn’t fall for this obvious propaganda strategy and decided to vote against Theresa May and the Tory’s, reducing the Conservatives number of seats and increasing Labours, resulting in a hung parliament. This forced the conservatives to think fast and form minority government with help from the far right, Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Adding the Tory and DUP seats together puts Theresa May just over the majority mark by two MPs. This clearly puts the conservatives in a desperate lose-lose situation with the opposition currently in a stronger position than the government. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tory’s could try and remedy this by calling another election. The problem with this option is that it would almost certainly result in a strong labour majority because if Labour managed to cause a hung parliament with the mainstream media against them all the way and the Tory’s a phenomenal 25 points ahead of them in the polls, just imagine what another surge from a +5 could result in. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other option means a pathetically weak government clinging on to power for as long as possible, while public opinion steadily turns against them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Pretty soon they will be seen as putting the interests of themselves above the interests of the nation. This means that when a general election does happen public opinion may have turned so significantly against the Tories to outright wipe them out as a political force.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My advice would be for them to take the hit as soon as possible, just so we can get the Tory’s out of power and get a real strong and stable government. That said, I don’t mind the idea of the Tory’s clinging on a little bit longer and wiping themselves out. The choice is really theirs.</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-55845245309813711652017-06-14T14:00:00.000-07:002017-06-14T14:00:59.840-07:0010 General Election Issues that we Must Not Forget<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oQBJ9Arl3A0/WUGjzCXHp4I/AAAAAAAAAwA/oiUodEgke0gOgv_yKZR7XCnsjFpBmkOJACLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oQBJ9Arl3A0/WUGjzCXHp4I/AAAAAAAAAwA/oiUodEgke0gOgv_yKZR7XCnsjFpBmkOJACLcBGAs/s1600/untitled.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The general election was indeed very interesting. As I said I my previous blog post it went from being an election where the Tory’s were inevitably going to win, to a genuinely close race. Although I think that Labours impressive performance was largely down to the fact that they offered a radical manifesto of hope, a few trip ups and outright lies from the Tory party undeniably allowed them to be cornered by Jeremy Corbyns campaign and caused some people to turn from the Tory’s to labour.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A lot of the post-election focus has understandably been on Theresa mays efforts to cling onto power by throwing her two closest advisers under the public opinion bus, pleading to her MP’s not to get rid of her, and sucking up to the most right wing people in parliament. All these are important issues that I will be talking about myself in due course, but we must not forget some of the key issues from the campaign</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Security</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the election, extreme security lapses led to two avoidable terrorist attacks. One was committed by an Islamist fanatic known to be plotting a terrorist attack in the UK who was allowed to come back through the UK border and was left unwatched as he planned and executed the attack on innocent children. The next attack was committed by a well-known extremist featured in a Channel 4 documentary called ‘the jihadists next door’ </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As Home Secretary Theresa May oversaw the longest and deepest cuts to per capita policing levels in British history. She slashed the number of police by 19,000. The police chiefs warned at the time that they were getting stretched beyond their capacities, but Theresa May condescendingly accused them of ‘scaremongering’. Now that we have got army deployed on the streets, I think it is fair to say that that accusation has not aged well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the Election, Theresa May refused to release a report into the funding of terrorist networks in the UK, presumably because it allegedly implicates Saudi Arabia.. If it’s revealed that terrorist networks operating in the UK are receiving funding from our supposed allies, that undoubtedly the stuff that can bring governments down. What we don’t know is whether or not Theresa May was aware of this report when she was hawking them weapons as home secretary. So the question has to be, is anyone in the mainstream going to attempt to hold Theresa May to account?</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Healthcare</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After the previously mentioned terrorist attacks much attention was understandably given to our security services. However we should not let this overshadow the incredibly important issue of NHS funding.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our doctors paramedics, nurses and surgeons were absolute heroes after the terrorist attacks, and NHS staff like mental health specialists and physiotherapists will be heroes of the recovery. The evidence is absolutely clear that the NHS cannot afford another five years of Tory vandalism. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone you know who works in the NHS about whether services have got better or worse over the past five years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many argue that the chaos in the NHS is being deliberately pushed in order to push more privatisation. This might sound like a conspiracy theory but the chairman of conservative health Paul Charlson even explained that the purpose of this ruinous Tory NHS agenda is to scrap the ‘free at the point of use’ principle and replace It with a US style private insurance model. Anyone who thinks that a private model would be preferable, really needs to go to their local hospital and ask how cost cutting has served them.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Dark ads</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tories ran an unprecedented campaign of dark ads, spending millions on spewing their propaganda all over social media, front loading YouTube videos with political attack adverts and hijacking political google searches with paid ads. This might seem at first glance like normal behaviour for a political party but there are numerous factors to consider. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In my view the specific targeting of particular voters in particular constituencies with dark ads should be declared under local, rather than national campaign budgets. It should be seen as absolutely necessary to copies of every political advertisement are checked by the electoral authorities. Many of these Tory dark ads, such as one they used to hijack searchers for the Labour manifesto, contained outright lies about the opposition parties and politicians. The electoral authorities really need to explain to the public what they intend to do to stop the dissemination of outright lies.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Lies</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from the Dark ads campaign, numerous Tory politicians were guilty of just blatantly lying to the British public. Theresa May herself being among them. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May </span><a href="https://skwawkbox.org/2017/06/04/may-reported-to-police-for-abbott-comment-electoral-breach-ge17-bbcqt/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">outright lied about Diane Abbott’s stance on the DNA database</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, by saying to a packed question time audience on national television that the shadow home secretary advocated the removal of the DNA samples of ‘criminals and terrorists’ from police databases. Abbot has of course done nothing of the sort. She has advocated the removal of the DNA of people proven to be innocent.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">May also lied that Labour proposes ‘uncontrolled immigration’ when in reality their manifesto pledged </span><a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017/brexit"><span style="font-family: inherit;">clampdowns on all kinds of harmful migration and increased funding of services for areas that have large immigration influxes</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. The labour programme is actually far more sensible and reasonable than the Tory approach of recycling their twice broken promise to reduce immigration to an arbitrary number. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After Brexit, and now this something really needs to be done to prevent our politicians from deliberately lying to us. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Yes First Strike</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the most bizarre aspects of the general election was the way Jeremy Corbyn was constantly ganged up on by members of the public and by the mainstream media, because of his reasonable No First Strike policy on nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Theresa May didn’t seem to receive any criticism at all about the announcement of her absolutely mad Yes First Strike policy. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I oppose the renewal of trident, but I at least understand the deterrent argument that people put up in favour of them. Yes first strike makes no so sense. Its total and utter madness that, in times of global conflict, would actually make the problem worse by significantly increasing the chances of a strike against London in order to eradicate the insane strike first leader, before they can launch a nuclear attack.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tory government need to be pressed a lot more on their Yes First Strike policy, because I’m pretty sure that most members of the public (even those that support trident) would be strongly against Theresa May essentially triggering Armageddon by using nukes as attack weapons. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Austerity</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tory austerity dogma resulted in the </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/britain-has-taken-longer-to-recover-from-recession-than-at-any-time-since-the-south-sea-bubble-9645218.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">slowest recovery from a recession since the South Sea Bubble Burst in the 18th century</span></a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/house-building-tories-labour-healey_uk_5910b87ce4b0d5d9049eb915"><span style="font-family: inherit;">, the lowest levels of housebuilding since the early 1920s</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/british-workers-suffering-worst-decline-in-real-wages-on-record-9789942.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the worst wage collapse since records began</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and </span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ea8f28fc-0b08-11e7-ac5a-903b21361b43?mhq5j=e3"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the least affordable house prices in history</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Not only that but for seven years we have been pitifully left behind on the world stage because the Tories have been investing far less in infrastructure than any other developed nation. All because of the Tory’s ideological fixation with their economically inept and self-defeating cost-cutting exercises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For seven ruinous years the mainstream media have time and time again failed to hold the Tories to account over their ideological fixation with austerity dogma. However, after more voters supported anti austerity parties than pro austerity parties in this election and the Tories are even claiming that they want to backtrack on austerity, surely now is the time for austerity dogma to be subjected to proper public scrutiny? </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Dementia Tax</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tories Dickensian policy of stabbing their core demographic in the back by </span><a href="https://fullfact.org/health/what-dementia-tax/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">threatening to assest strip their family homes if they dare to commit the ‘crime’ of getting dementia or one of the other horrible diseases, has not disappeared</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. They have simply announced that there will be a limit on how much wealth they can extract from frail old people and other disabled people. They have not said how much that limit is going to be, nor whether it would be an overall cap (a weak incentive to suicide) or an annual limit that rolls over indefinitely (a strong incentive to suicide). </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What will happen to the Dementia Tax policy in future Tory manifestos is anyone guess, they certainly took a gamble with it this time. Nevertheless, questions need to be asked about the details that Theresa May has failed to disclose, and also over the morality of this policy. How is it remotely humane or decent to assest strip frail old people whilst simultaneously giving tens of billions in handouts to corporations and your mega rich chums?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Tory self interest</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May could have maintained political power until 2020, but she clearly and undeniably put her own self-interest above the good of the nation by calling a snap election when her poll lead was at an all-time high. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After the failure of David Cameron’s EU referendum gamble, wagered in order to poach a few UKIP voters in 2015, Theresa Mays vanity election is the second time that the Tories have thrown the whole country into chaos by putting their own self-interest first. Instead of conducting Brexit in an amicable way, by taking the views of opposition parties and devolved governments into consideration and forming some kind of UK wide consensus. She wanted to crush all political opposition to be crowd the undisputable and unchallengeable queen of Brexit, so she could dictate the whole process of exiting the European Union herself.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s now abundantly clear that the Tory party simply cannot be trusted to consider the good of the nation as a whole, above the self-serving opportunism of their leaders. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Press Corruption</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>One of Theresa Mays most despicable manifesto pledges was to throw the leveson report onto the fire </span><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/#q=milly+dowler&amp;spf=1497472749986"><span style="font-family: inherit;">as if Rupert Murdoch’s minions had never hacked into the phone of a murdered teenage girl</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the election, the billionaire owned propaganda rags went into absolute overdrive with an unprecedented smear mongering campaign against the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn. Thankfully, the smear mongering didn’t pay off. Neither did it deliver Theresa May the super majority she was expecting when she called her self-serving snap election, but the malign influence of the billionaire press barons was still enough to help her avoid an astounding defeat, which means that there’s still the possibility that the Tory’s will try and bin the leveson investigation as a favour to their faithful mainstream media attack dogs. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Rights and Freedoms</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite the wailing from Tory’s that we shouldn’t try and politicise attacks when they happen, Theresa May didn’t half opportunistically piggybank her hatred of human rights on to the terrorist atrocities.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She is just so incapable of thinking things through that she doesn’t even understand that the destruction of our western justice-based human rights would be seen as a massive ideological victory for the Islamist extremists. These depraved fanatics absolutely hate our liberal values and our non-sharia court systems. If we scrapped our human rights after one suicide bombing and a couple of sick rampages through the streets of London, they would obviously see it as a huge victory and wonder what could be achieved with a more concerted series of attacks.</span>&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-70910836653196721702017-06-12T13:44:00.001-07:002017-06-12T13:44:23.915-07:00Its Not Over<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IkCzk4eya-A/WT79Bk4quUI/AAAAAAAAAvw/vczV_YHE9U8PQc96msvvjb1vp6d-4s8ngCLcB/s1600/v218-Jeremy-Corbyn-Get-v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IkCzk4eya-A/WT79Bk4quUI/AAAAAAAAAvw/vczV_YHE9U8PQc96msvvjb1vp6d-4s8ngCLcB/s320/v218-Jeremy-Corbyn-Get-v2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When the general election was first called by Theresa May in April Labour had a disappointing 25 point lag behind The Conservatives. Theresa May was portrayed as the strong and stable leader that would lead us through Brexit, while Corbyn was the old, unelectable terrorist sympathiser whom the right of the labour party would point the blame to when Labour was inevitably wiped out. It was looking bleak on all counts. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet as series of incredible opportunities changed this consensus. A leaked Labour manifesto containing policies such as the nationalisation of key infustructure, the creation of a national investment bank and the abolishan of Tuition fees, proved incredibly popular. Some of the UKs best rap and rock musicians turned out to support Corbyn, inspiring over 70% of young people to take an interest in the Corbyn surge. While Theresa May went around the country speaking to Tory councillors and refusing to debate her opponents, Corbyn was out there speaking to huge crowds and challenging the PM to face him head to head. I could go on. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All this resulted in a tense atmosphere on Election Day. It was a make or break moment for the British left. If we got this right we would go back to being a major player in British politics. If we got this wrong, it would leave the left demoralised and unrepresented by the Labour movement. As polling stations around the country closed, and the election coverage announced the exit polls, everyone’s mouths collectively fell open. The final polls showed a hung parliament, with the Conservatives losing and labour gaining a substantial amount of seats. Throughout the night this proved to be a reality as Jeremy Corbyns Labour exceeded both their vote share and their number of seats impressively, with Labour taking conservative seats like Kensington and Canterbury. By Friday morning we had a weak Tory government propped up by, far right northern Irish party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and a strong and stable opposition led by a newly energised Jeremy Corbyn.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So where does this leave us. Let’s not forget that Theresa May called this election with the sole purpose of crushing opposition to her government. It was nothing but brazen vanity cheered on by an ever more right wing and nefarious press. Instead the opposite happened – Theresa May destroyed herself, and in the process significantly weakened the conservatives grip on power, undermining their entire reason for having an election in the first place and forcing them into a coalition with a small group of former Ulster Defence League, northern Irish fanatics. For Theresa May to do anything but resign in disgrace at this point would show her lack of decency and integrity. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why did Labour do so well? Over the coming months the mainstream media will be attempting to set the narrative that Corbyn did not really do well, and that the success that The Tory’s were headed for was compounded by a failure to avoid the U turns that inevitably came with the criticism of Conservative policies like the Dementia Tax. However, this narrative completely fails to explain why this is the highest turnout since 1997, eclipsing Tony Blair’s result in 2005. Young voters and previous non-voters didn’t flock to Labour because they thought ‘Hmmm Theresa May isn’t very good at sticking to her promises’. Also, if this result is all down to Mays poor leadership, why didn’t Labour get a similar result in 2015, after David Cameron famously chickened out of having a head to head debate with Ed Miliband? That seems very weak and feeble as well doesn’t it? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The young have suffered disproportionately these past few years: Student Debt, a housing crisis, a lack of secure jobs, falling wages, cuts to social security – young voters have been ignored, ridiculed and demonised. This has in the past had the dangerous effect of making young people so disillusioned with politics that they don’t vote, which in turn contributes to their lack of representation by the political system. In fact, it was thought by some that, despite the Corbyn surge, the young vote would be no different at this election. One sickeningly disrespectful Tory candidate </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-may-election-error-polls_uk_592ecc58e4b0540ffc834f06"><span style="font-family: inherit;">told the Huff Post that regardless of under 30s enthusiasm for Corbyn ‘they don’t care enough to get off their lazy arses to vote for him</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">’. Well get of our lazy arses we did, and we made Labour the strong opposition party that this country needs. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This election result was about millions inspired by a radical, left wing programme that promised to transform Britain, to attack injustice and to challenge the vested interests holding this country back. Don’t let the press barons and conservative MPs tell you that this is wrong. Polling for years has shown that people on the whole believe that the well-off should pay more that we should invest money into our schools and hospitals, that the living wage should allow people to live, that young people should not be saddled with debt for aspiring to an education. The left has long been argued that these ideas have the support of millions: On June the 9th that argument was decisively proved correct. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even better, Labour is now permanently transformed. Their radical, left wing, socially democratic policy proposals are now the party’s consensus. It cannot and will not be taken away. Those who claimed that its ideas would fail to get off the ground or win seats for labour were simply wrong. Labour didn’t win the general election, but being 25 points behind the Tories at the start of the election, they were never going to. That policy programme enabled Labour to eclipse Tony Blair’s swing in 1997, a stunning achievement. Social Democracy is in crisis across the whole of the western world. Many of its political parties are now nothing more than pitiful, right wing imitations of the movements they once were, Labour are one of the most successful parties are they are left wing. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, it seems I owe Corbyn a bit of an apology. Following the Copeland By-election result earlier this year, I wrote a piece entitled On Copeland. Here I entertained the idea, notably being proliferated at the time by Owen Jones, that many had a bad impression of Jeremy Corbyn as a leader and that as a result Labour were headed for a catastrophic general election defeat (In what was then still 2020) that would crush all the things that I believe in. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Although I had previously supported Jeremy all the way, I concluded from Copeland that it would make sense for Corbyn to step down, to be replaced with someone who can carry Corbyns left wing ideas into a general election. Looking back on that blog post, I think I was naïve in suggesting that someone with Corbyns opinions could be put onto the ballot paper in a Labour Leadership contest. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was wrong. So utterly, completely wrong. Usually when I have to admit that I am wrong about something I have written on this blog it is increasingly frustrating, due to the fact that I try and hold all my work to some sort of honest standard. In this case however, admitting I was wrong is perhaps the best thing I have ever written. Those who read the aforementioned blog post will know that it is one plagued with a kind of solemn and sad attitude towards what I was saying. I even considered never publishing the article, and filing it away in the ‘unfinished’ folder on my laptop. Never Again. Corbyn stays and – if indeed the Tories continue to be thrown into crisis – Corbyn has a very real chance of becoming the Prime Minister, and a very good PM he would be as well.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the very least I know I was not alone in being wrong. The biggest perpetrators of all are surely the mainstream media. Both the right wing and the left wing press. Although I think one side is more likely to admit it than the other, they were wrong to vilify Corbyn supporters as delusional cultists. They were wrong to suggest that Corbyn could not mobilise young people and previous non-voters. They were wrong to suggest Corbyn couldn’t make inroads in Scotland. They were wrong to suggest Labour couldn’t take seats of the Tories in England. They were wrong to suggest a radical left wing programme was a recipe for electoral disaster. Labour may not have formed a government, but they are far closer than they have been for a very long time. The prospect of a left wing government run in the interests of ordinary working people – not the cartel of vested interests who have plunged us into crisis after crisis – is an idea many of us thought would never happen. It is now much closer than it has ever been. So to quote a Jeremy Corbyn tweet I ridiculed in by blog post on Copeland: The fight starts now.</span>&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-45132664416299721672017-06-08T10:38:00.001-07:002017-06-14T14:05:09.977-07:00A Real Anti-Establishment Revolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2zT03kHthK0/WTmLYzuYKPI/AAAAAAAAAvg/HLcjMOSSzVE6-bvxBbPKWdo6u5lrpo3WQCLcB/s1600/20150914-105122_U1253_M86998_eb8f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2zT03kHthK0/WTmLYzuYKPI/AAAAAAAAAvg/HLcjMOSSzVE6-bvxBbPKWdo6u5lrpo3WQCLcB/s320/20150914-105122_U1253_M86998_eb8f.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I voice my opinions pretty harshly on this blog. That is because I am passionate about what I believe in and I want to stand up for what is right. However, I would like to think I am humble enough to admit it when I turn out to be wrong on something. The honest truth is that I might have to do this in just a few hours. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>I only realised this yesterday and was slightly taken aback by it myself, having to wrestle with the logic of it. But here is the truth: If Jeremy Corbyn wins this election, like I so desperately want him to, I will have to admit that I was wrong about Brexit. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyone has actually read my work, rather than writing me of as a ‘remoner’ and ignoring what I have been saying all together, will know that I have never been particularly pro EU. I dislike the way that the EU forces neoliberal policies on its member nations by having an anti-nationalisation clause and forcing austerity measures on developing nations in return for bailout packages; Despite the treaty being dead in the water before we voted to leave the EU I also had a profound dislike of the TTIP corporate power grab which would have allowed private corporations to sue government agencies; Finally, I hate the Immoral and impractical EU-Turkey migrant deal. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All this considered, my opposition to Brexit didn’t stem from an ideological rejection of the idea of leaving the EU, but actually from a recognition that a chaotic unplanned Brexit carried out by a callous bunch of selfish, immigrant hating Tory elitists would obviously be a total disaster for the economy and a complete nightmare for millions of ordinary working people. Furthermore, with the economic crash that will inevitably come from Brexit, the Tory’s would be likely to load the burden of the crisis on to the most downtrodden areas of society in order to protect the assets of the super-rich. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I acknowledged in my blog posts leading up to the EU referendum, it was not just the far right ‘Britain First/Ukipper’ crowd that wanted Brexit. Lots of other people wanted it because they see the EU as an undemocratic neoliberal monolith. At the time, I thought these people were ridiculously foolish. There was just no way that the Tory’s would wilfully relinquish their grip on power before 2020, meaning Brexit would have to be conducted by the most pro-austerity party in Europe and run entirely in the interests of the corporate giants and the super-rich. Ditching one group of establishment elites by leaving the European union, only to hand power to the corrupt and exploitative Tory Party, seemed to me like nothing more than an ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ situation. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Surprisingly though, thanks to Theresa Mays incredible narcissism and overconfidence, Toe Tory establishment have actually given us a chance to ditch them too. Now there is a chance to elect a genuine anti-establishment candidate to take over the Brexit process and deliver a Brexit that works for all British people not just the establishment few. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you don’t think Jeremy Corbyn is anti-establishment, I encourage you to take a quick look at his track record:</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt 35.7pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;symbol&quot;; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">In 2003, as chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, he helped to organise the biggest protest in British History against the invasion of Iraq (an invasion that even Theresa May voted in favour of)</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt 35.7pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;symbol&quot;; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Since 2010, he has constantly opposed the Austerity agenda, even when the Labour leadership was imposing a whip on its MP’s to support it. He knows that loading the cost of the crisis on to the backs of ordinary people, whilst giving vast handouts to the super rich, isn’t just immoral, but economically inept. </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt 35.7pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;symbol&quot;; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">In 2011 he was one of the few MPs in order to vote against turning Libya into another lawless terrorism breeding crowd, in which the Manchester bomber was radicalised. </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt 35.7pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;symbol&quot;; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">In 2015 he was a 200-1 outsider to lead his party, but he won a massive landslide victory over the three pro establishment candidates</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt 35.7pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;symbol&quot;; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">In 2016, the pro establishment faction of his party used the Brexit vote to launch an ultimately fruitless coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn. He resisted and the ordinary people stood behind him and showed the establishment MPs their place</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jeremy Corbyn defines himself as a servant of the people. That’s why the establishment elites hate him so much. They think that power and wealth belongs to them and only them. Corbyn is clearly hated by the establishment, which is why this kind, peaceful man has been smeared and abused in the most outrageous manner. They are absolutely terrified of him. Just think about it. Are we going to make a huge anti-establishment stand in 2016 and then completely screw it up by voting in favour of the establishment in 2017? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you’re looking for a proper anti-establishment revolution then the chance doesn’t come along very often, and it really doesn’t come better than this. Jeremy Corbyns not perfect, but he is on the side of working people. He has promised no tax rises for 95% of earners; better workers’ rights; a society that treats disabled people decently and fairly; universal and free access to education; properly funded public services; and a clampdown on tax dodgers. Jeremy Corbyn has also undoubtedly fought this election campaign honestly and decently, while their opponents reduced themselves to slinging vitriolic abuse at him. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you voted to stick it to the establishment, don’t go voting for the establishment now. Vote for Labour. Vote for a real anti establishment revolution.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-30175899318123361572017-06-07T14:19:00.001-07:002017-06-07T14:19:41.570-07:00The Generational Voting Divide (and what we can do about it) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rE2CIl_WO0c/WThtp5ZkikI/AAAAAAAAAvQ/s-WqD65l7L0K7IaxJR4KdiB8-HDtXfSowCLcB/s1600/20170506_BRP009_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="595" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rE2CIl_WO0c/WThtp5ZkikI/AAAAAAAAAvQ/s-WqD65l7L0K7IaxJR4KdiB8-HDtXfSowCLcB/s320/20170506_BRP009_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We saw it with Brexit and we saw it with numerous general elections. There is a large generational divide in British politics. </span><a href="https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017_guardian_poll8_may26-29.pdf"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That isn’t simply my opinion but rather the findings of poling company ICM</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Labour are outperforming the Tories by almost 5:1 amongst 18-24 year olds, who see Jeremy Corbyns transformational manifesto as a beacon of hope for the future. Obviously, it goes without saying that in order to win this election Labour will need the votes of the younger generation. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Although the Tories Dickensian dementia Tax policy of asset stripping the family homes of elderly people for the ‘crime’ of getting dementia or Alzheimer’s, may have caused some older voters to be put off the Conservatives, the over 65s are still going to come out in force to vote for the party that plans to strip them of their winter fuel allowance, scrap the triple lock on pensions and assest strip their houses. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s unbelievable that so many millions of pensioners are not only intent on voting to impoverish themselves but to allow the Tories to trash the aspiration of their grandchildren by gutting education funding, keeping exploitative zero hour contracts, enforcing the highest tuition fees of anywhere in the world, underfunding vitally needed infustructure, and gutting public services in order to fund their tax cuts for corporations and the super-rich!</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Why Is this the Case? </span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Obviously I am generalising a bit here, it is clear that not all pensioners believe in voting for a government that is going to make life worse for themselves and the younger generations. Some of them are smart and turned on enough to see through the Tory propaganda that they are bombarded with on a regular basis. However, there are reasons why many of them do and will:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the main reasons is that many older people have no access to social media or the internet and are thus likely to more susceptible to being told lies by one or a few of the highly biased Newspapers like the Telegraph or the Sun. Independent media sites like Novara Media simply have no way to reach the large pensioners. Many of them won’t even get a chance to find out about the policy pledges in manifestos, other than the carefully selected ones that appear on television or in the newspapers. While we often talk of echo chambers in terms of the confirmation bias that appears on Twitter or Facebook (which is admittedly a problem), they are certainly not suffering a worse echo chamber problem than those who rely entirely on mainstream media.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are of course other reasons why older people are more likely that not to vote Tory. There is no polite way to say this, but the older people get, the more gullible and open to manipulation they become. I am not just presuming this, </span><a href="https://www.onlineprivacyfoundation.org/opf-research/psychological-biases/psychology-and-the-eu-referendum-update/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the Online Privacy Foundation carried out some interesting research into exactly this kind of political psychology, during the EU referendum</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. One of the most interesting results was that Brexit voters are more susceptible to right wing authoritarianism than remain voters, but that older leaders are also more attracted to the right wing tyrant style of leadership then younger voters. When we are talking about authoritarianism, you don’t get much more authoritarian in the British sense than Theresa May. Yes, Margret Thatcher crushed entire communities in pursuit of her hard right economic agenda, but she never openly fantasised about trashing the European Convention of Human Rights.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another thing that the research shows is that older people are more likely to suffer from the classic Dunning-Kruger effect. This is when someone has very limited understanding of a subject, thus greatly overestimating their knowledge of the subject. So basically people who know nothing, act like they know everything! Mixed with declining cognitive ability and the sheer level of propaganda they get bombarded with, this particularly effects older people. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like I said before, this obviously doesn’t apply to all pensioners (hell, some old people still like heavy metal) but on average most people, of no particular fault of their own, end up with declining cognitive abilities. Most old people end up losing their ability to critique the things they’re told, seriously overestimating their own expertise, and craving hard right leadership.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">What can we do?</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The only way we can stop the older generations from wrecking their dignity in old age and wrecking the aspirations of younger generations, is to talk to them. However hard the conversations might be, we have to bridge the generational divide by getting them to rekindle the sceptical abilities that they had in their youth.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">True, Older people tend to suffer significant mental decline, but they are also likely to be conscientious. They’re more likely to care about other people, behave selflessly and put other people’s needs above their own. Appealing to older peoples own self-interest is a fair and non-exploitative strategy. Telling them that the Tory’s are going to rip them off by scrapping their winter fuel payments, the triple lock, and assest stripping them if they get ill and need social care is a reasonable thing to do, as these are things that older people have a right to know. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A major stumbling block in this strategy is that the Tories know that older people are likely to care about people, so they dress their draconian legislation up as ‘necessary sacrifices in the national interest’ rather than what they are, which is policies designed to punish vulnerable people for the benefit of the rich. The Tories are so heartless that they know older people can be tricked into voting against their interests, by telling them it’s in the greater good. That’s why, it is vitally important to make sure our elderly relatives know that the Tories are lying through their teeth. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Probably a much better way of speaking to elderly people, </span><a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017"><span style="font-family: inherit;">is to talk about the significant differences Labours Policies make to the lives of younger generations</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, their own grandchildren. Talk about how the Tories want to scrap free school meals and scrap education funding, so that the kids of today have worse opportunities then previous generations of children. Talk about student debts, explain how tuition fees in the UK are the highest in the whole world, and that Labour want to abolish them. Talk about Zero hour contracts, and how they represent a modern incarnation of unstable unemployment. Help them understand that the Tories aren’t just taking wealth from older generations, they are robbing wealth and opportunities from the entire country.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The votes of elderly citizens might make all the difference at this election. Obviously the votes of younger generations are equally important, but we need to stop the Tories blindly robbing the wealth and opportunities of all generations. Good luck.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-32912211477742386352017-06-07T10:29:00.001-07:002017-06-07T10:29:57.998-07:00You Cant Trust Theresa May to Deliver a good Brexit Deal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RpQ3vvzougg/WTg4B5_E5nI/AAAAAAAAAvA/J68znjjdJysunjUAIYBUC2tGdk88pEzNwCLcB/s1600/753454_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="590" height="189" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RpQ3vvzougg/WTg4B5_E5nI/AAAAAAAAAvA/J68znjjdJysunjUAIYBUC2tGdk88pEzNwCLcB/s320/753454_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tories are trying to frame this election around the issue of Brexit. Perhaps the strongest thing that Theresa May has going for her campaign is the lie that the opposition parties are trying to obstruct Brexit, and that therefore the conservatives and only the conservatives can provide the ‘strong and stable’ leadership to finish the job. This is an influential propaganda strategy. It points to what is the most prominent political issue at the time, and offers one group of people up as the only people that can deal with it, because that’s the way things are already. However, this strong and stable narrative can be disproven with a quick look at the facts. </span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa Mays Brexit Record</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Upon being appointed as Prime Minister by default after the Tory leadership contest fell apart, Theresa May assembled her Brexit team: David Davis is certainly not one of the worst as far as Tory MPs go, but he clearly doesn’t know what he is doing. Boris Johnson, a man who has insulted every country on earth, is clearly a ridiculous choice for home secretary. Finally, using Brexit as an excuse to bring the disgraced Liam Fox back into front line politics is an extraordinary move, as the man should be in jail for sharing official secrets with his friends not relegated to the back benches to be thrown back into government a few years later. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After six tedious months of stalling everyone by replying ‘Brexit means Brexit’ every time she was asked a question about what Brexit means, Theresa May finally revealed her negotiating strategy. Unfortunately, this ‘strategy’ turned out to be nothing other than a ludicrous threat that she would turn the UK into a low wage, low skilled, hard right corporate tax haven if the EU didn’t give into her staggeringly unrealistic demands of access to the single market for a select few corporations and banks! </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From January onward Theresa May began robotically parroting the propaganda trope that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’. The Anti EU hard right press is going to shriek ‘BAD DEAL!’ to every single concession to the European Union during the negotiations though. Therefore, there is pretty much no other way of seeing this phrase other than a cynical attempt to brainwash the public into believing that triggering social and economic chaos by walking away from the negotiating table with absolutely no deal whatsoever, is in fact a good thing. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In March the House of Lords tried to add two amendments to the Tories Brexit Bill but they were both stripped out again by the Tory government in the House of Commons. One amendment was to endure that parliament has an actual vote on whether Theresa May is able to trigger a socially and economically ruinous hard Brexit if her threat based posturing fails to secure a good settlement with the EU. Before that safeguard was removed, the Tories (with assistance from UKIP, the DUP and some Eurosceptic labour rebels) scrapped the amendment designed to ensure that Theresa May doesn’t use the lives of an estimated 3 million EU citizens in the UK as bargaining chips in her negotiations with the EU. It is absolutely clear that from the scrapping of these amendments that the Tories don’t care about democracy or the rights of EU citizens to feel safe where they live. They just want to secure the hardest Brexit possible, so they can get on with their wet dream of turning Britain into a hard right tax haven. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Delaying Tactics</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In April 2017, almost immediately after Triggering article 50, Theresa May decided to keep the EU waiting for two months by calling her opportunistic self-serving election! Anyone trying to defend this move needs to take a long hard look at their priorities. By the time Theresa Mays vanity election is over she will have successfully stalled the Brexit negotiation process for almost an entire year!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You would have thought that Brexiters would be totally hacked off at her blatant delaying tactics by now, but somehow they still seem to adore her! It’s like they haven’t even realised that everything that comes out of Theresa Mays mouth is the polar opposite of her actions. Think very clearly about it: She apparently called the election to stop opposition parties obstructing Brexit (which they weren’t – the article 50 Bill went through parliament without a single amendment!) but this election itself is another two month delay on top of the nine month delay between the Brexit vote and the triggering of article 50: A two month delay that was caused entirely by Theresa May.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Time to Give Someone else a try</span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are three reasons why Jeremy Corbyn would have a much better chance of making a success of Brexit than Theresa May. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Most obviously, he is not Theresa May. Electing someone new would be a chance for a fresh start without all the scaremongering, insults and flat out conspiratorial thinking that all seem to be contained in Theresa Mays negotiating strategy. The Tories threat based posturing and lack of a simple economic plan will mean no deal with the EU!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Secondly, Jeremy Corbyn has made it clear time and time again that he stands with the ordinary citizens of this country and against the elitist establishment class. The fact that he is on our side and not theirs is obvious from the fact that they have tried to do everything in their power to destroy him. Despite the constant barrage of smears and even a coup attempt by the establishment insiders in his own party Corbyn is still somehow standing. If that isn’t concrete proof of his determination and strength of character, I don’t know what is. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thirdly, it clear that Corbyn isn’t a narcissistic control freak like Theresa May, so he would delegate the negotiation job to his Brexit minister. Unlike the bumbling David Davis, Kier Starmer is in fact a highly intelligent and highly capable experienced politician. With the Tories you would get David Davis trying to negotiate the whole thing on a platform of having no realistic economic proposals whatsoever, while Theresa May desperately tries to micromanage the whole thing, disregarding the interests of the nation as a whole. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Conclusion</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If Theresa May wins this election then the Brexit negotiations will be a disaster. It would obviously be a massive challenge for Jeremy Corbyn’s far superior Brexit team (Kier Starmer, Emily Thornberry, and Barry Gardiner) to make any kind of success of it, but under Theresa Mays leadership it will be a massive bloody mess (just like her abysmal track record at the home office). Don’t say you were not warned.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-69032813685055127882017-06-06T13:44:00.000-07:002017-06-06T13:44:59.238-07:00Two Different Visions, One Simple Choice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9yTD8lvaIzU/WTcT9neyOKI/AAAAAAAAAuw/Tho2gqczImsg33dVjeStq7ek_s_t2v1XwCLcB/s1600/_96345204_may-corbyn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="660" height="179" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9yTD8lvaIzU/WTcT9neyOKI/AAAAAAAAAuw/Tho2gqczImsg33dVjeStq7ek_s_t2v1XwCLcB/s320/_96345204_may-corbyn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Labour and Tory manifestos. Unlike what we saw with under the Blair, brown and Miliband years of the Labour Party, these manifestos seem to offer a clear and distinct choice. This is not just seen in policy but in the parties overall approach. One is a very carefully costed vision of hope for the country, where the government invests in the future of its people in order to make things better. The other is a completely un-costed nightmarishly Dickensian vision of a future where the government effectively turn Britain into a hard right tax haven on the shores of Europe.</span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t generally put this into my blog posts, because it is bloody obvious that what you read here is my opinion, but in the interests of informing my audience I recommend you take a look at the manifestos for yourselves and make up your own mind rather than taking the word of some leftie blogger you have found on the internet. </span><a href="https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is the Conservative one</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017"><span style="font-family: inherit;">here is the Labour one</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. You will see from reading them what I mean about the stark contrast between the visions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><h4 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Labour Manifesto</span></h4><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Labour Manifesto is not perfect. My main objections include their commitment to the renewal of Trident, their strategically idiotic stance on Scottish Independence and their failure to take a stronger stance against academies toppling education budgets in order to pay for executive salaries. However, it is by far the best manifesto I have seen from them. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Education</strong>: </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Labour are planning to bring in a national education service, the concept of education as a human right and not a product to use for profit is something that should have been acknowledged a long time ago. Labour are also pledging to Abolish Tuition Fees, thus meaning that students won’t be loaded with mountains of unrepayable debt when they leave university. Thirdly, Labour want to introduce a policy of free school meals to cover all primary school children: who could have thought that having children well fed would be a good idea? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Disability</strong>: </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Labour will repeal the numerous cuts in social security support for people with disabilities, through a new social security bill. In addition to this, Labour will scrap the blatantly unfit for purpose WCA and PIP assessment regime’s, replacing it with a system that allows disabled people to develop a tailored personal plan. Given that the UK government has been criticised severely by the UN for ‘Grave violations of Disabled peoples rights’ it only seems appropriate that Labour will incorporate the UN convention on disabled people rights into UK law. Finally, Labour have announced that they will adopt the social model of disability, this would mark a profound change in the way policy is made, making it focus on the removal of societal barriers rather than dehumanising attempts to ‘cure’ disabled people. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Immigration</strong>: </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Instead of following Theresa Mays model of picking a number out of thin air and making no effort to stick to it, Labour want to address some of the harmful impact of migration with a series of specific policy pledges (clamping down on gang mastering, a Ban on exclusive overseas recruitment, restoring the migrant impact fund to boost public services in areas with high immigration)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Tax</strong>: </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Labour Guarantee not to raise income tax on 95% of ordinary people. The principle of not raising taxes on low income people and making those with the broadest shoulders pay the greatest amount marks a profound change in what the Tory’s have been doing for the past 7 years (the full burden of austerity for the poorest, lavish tax cuts, endless government subsidies for the super-rich. Labour are also planning to gradually raise the level of corporation tax to 25% over the next five years, which is still the lowest of any country in the G7. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Economy</strong>: </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Labour are going to help small businesses by restoring the small profits rate: It is only sensible that infant industries pay a smaller rate than multinationals. This encourages entrepreneurship and mitigates against the advantage that sizable economies give to corporate behemoths. In addition to this, the Labour policy of renationalising some of the UK’s most vital infrastructure (much of which is in the hands of foreign governments) is very sensible and popular with the public. Labours plan to end the Tory’s disastrous austerity agenda and replace it with an investment led approach, is a long awaited blast of economic competence from the party that lost its way so badly by pursuing an ‘austerity lite’ agenda, during the 2015 general election.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Environment:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Labour will invest in rural and coastal communities, as well as investing in flood defences. The Party will also introduce a ‘clean air act’, which would hold companies to an air pollution standard. The Labour Party say that they will plant a million trees and, unlike the Tories, say how they are going to pay for it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Labour will cease the cruel and dangerous Badger Cull. Last but not least, they will ban the unnecessary practice of fracking. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Health and Welfare:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Labour plans to properly fund the NHS and Mental health services is something only the most blinkered of Tory fanatics could disagree with. Labour will also keep the pensions triple lock, winter fuel payments and properly fund social care. These should be big vote winners amongst the older generations (depending of course of whether or not the older generations actually find out about these policies).</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tory Manifesto</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is only fair that I should point out the positives in the Tory manifesto before I start. They want to plant a million trees (but don’t say how much that will cost). They want to phase out their costs in infustructure spending (they don’t say what that will cost either). They say they want to invest in further education (no costings) and they vaguely promise to increase funding for cycling infustructure (yep, no sums provided).</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Education:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tory’s are planning to scrap free school meals for children. While not strictly education related, they are also planning to throw the leveson enquiry onto the fire as if Rupert Murdoch never hacked into Milly Dowler’s phone at all. The reason I bring this up in this section is that the public have a right to know about the phone hacking, so they know not to blindly trust the UK press. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Disability:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tory manifesto really doesn’t give me much to work with on the subject of disabled people…umm….there is a vague bit about ‘looking after everyone. I really don’t know what else you can expect. Given that the Tory party have so far presided over the tearing up of existing legislation in order to replace it with a dehumanising tests and cuts regime. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Immigration:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tory’s are sticking with the arbitrary 100,000immigration target even though they have missed it over and over again since 2010. Pandering to the anti-immigration crowd is a priority at this election. Theresa May thinks she can recycle the same old immigration pledge for a third time, and the anti-immigrant will just lap it up as if they have never heard it before. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Tax:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tories are sticking with their plan to give corporations a £70 billion tax break by reducing corporation tax to just 17% (<a href="http://www.uhy-uk.com/news-events/news/companies-in-uk-enjoy-one-of-lowest-corporation-tax-rates-of-major-global-economies/">that’s 10% below the global average of 27% and pretty much half of the G7 average of 32.3%</a>). The Tories have also openly scrapped their pledge not to raise income tax and national insurance. If you work for a living, you have been warned about what they have in store for working people. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Economy:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The tory manifesto admits they won’t be able to get rid of the deficit until ‘the middle of the next decade’. So that will be 15 years to achieve what they said they would do in less than five, and they’re actually boasting about it! They’re admitting that they are going to miss their own target by an entire decade. (Creating more public debt in the process), yet their still pretending to be the party of economics.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Environment:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Tories want to bring back the barbaric practice of ripping wild foxes apart with packs of dogs. 84% of the British public oppose it, but they will vote to bring it back if they win the election. The Tories also want to give fracking companies the power to drill wherever they like, stripping local councils of the power to decide whether they want fracking in their area or not. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Health and Welfare:</strong> </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The most attention grabbing policy is their Dementia Tax policy of assest stripping elderly people for the ‘crime’ of getting ill in their old age. Screw the fact that these people worked hard and paid their National Insurance and Council tax for decades In order to fund the NHS and social care. Their houses are now low hanging fruit for the Tory’s to harvest. They also say they want to chuck £8bn at the NHS, but given that this was promised in the last Tory manifesto, I think we can just treat it as a recycled pledge. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Conclusion</strong></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s absolutely clear that these manifestos offer two wildly different visions for the future. The Labour Party offers a positive investment based strategy where the government works to improve the lives of all citizens by investing in public services, infustructure, a national education service, housing and decent wages so people can actually lead a fulfilling life.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tory manifesto outlines a bleak dystopian future where the government works to confiscate as much wealth as possible from ordinary people, in order to fund even more lavish tax breaks for the corporations and the super-rich individuals that bankroll their party.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-59653867402760762052017-06-05T05:26:00.001-07:002017-06-05T05:26:43.245-07:00Judge Them on thier Record<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TeUzTfPoXI4/WTVN3WYQnkI/AAAAAAAAAug/cAjaaXCZGLcElBWwlzdFUD6aUX6IlNq2QCLcB/s1600/DBLYOW5XcAA6lWD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1188" height="182" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TeUzTfPoXI4/WTVN3WYQnkI/AAAAAAAAAug/cAjaaXCZGLcElBWwlzdFUD6aUX6IlNq2QCLcB/s320/DBLYOW5XcAA6lWD.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps the best Tory campaign slogan we have heard from this election is the repeated use of 'judge us on our record’. The phrase is designed to paint an image of the Tories as reasonable and open to criticism from the electorate. The phrase was notably used by Theresa May's stand in act during the 2017 election debate, soliciting roars of laughter from the crowd. They knew as well as anyone that judging the Tories on their record would result in a decisive election loss. Ironically, the conservative party don't want us to judge them on their record, but on their meaningless sloganeering and catch phrases like 'judge us on our record’. Today, I have decided to do just that. Here are a few of the Tories 'achievements over the past few years:</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Missed Economic Targets: </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Before getting into power in 2010 the Tories promised to eliminate the deficit within the first year of the new parliament. When they got into power they said the deficit will be eliminated by 2015. <a href="http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/overview-of-the-november-2016-economic-and-fiscal-outlook/">In 2017 they are saying that the deficit will be eliminated by 2025.</a> So the Tories want us to vote them in at this parliament, then vote them in again in 2022, and they might have eliminated the deficit by halfway through that parliament. How many more times are the Tories going to move the goalposts before they finally decide to change their clearly fruitless economic strategy. Not only that, but the Tories have managed to create more public debt in seven years than every single labour government in history combined. If this is 'strong and stable’ handling of the economy, I would love to see what the Tories define as weak and chaotic economics'.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Declining Wages:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">under Tory rule British workers have suffered the joint worse wage decline in the developed world, with Greece. This is also the longest decline in wages since records began. The only real difference is that Greece did it because they were forced to by the Troika. The Tories did it because they don't care about British workers.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Austerity:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">you would think that after the decline in wages, the spectacularly missed economic targets, the creation of tons of debt and George Osborne's eventual departure from front line politics, that the Tories would seriously reconsider their economic strategy. It's amazing that so many people still believe in the austerity con. Theresa May has been proliferating the same kind of economically illiterate justifications for the austerity con. The evidence is clear that austerity has only succeeded in the transferring of public money into provide pockets, at the expense of the millions of people, who keep the economy going.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>The NHS Crisis:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories slashed £20 billion from the NHS. Their current spending proposals involve the cutting of another £22 billion before 2020. In 2010 the Tories promised to stop the forced closure of NHS services. In 2012 the Tories tried to force the closure of Lewisham hospital. In 2014 they tried to change the rules in order to make it easier to force the closure of NHS services. Since 2015, the Tories have been working on a secret plan to close NHS centres, maternity wards, walk in centres and mental health services &nbsp;a up and down the country. This has been continued by Theresa May. One of her first acts as PM was to scrap nurse’s bursaries which caused an astonishing 100,000 decline in applications for university nursing courses. &nbsp;Not only are this, but thousands of NHS staff from EU countries leaving the NHS in record numbers causing a recruitment crisis. &nbsp;Laying of tens of thousands of staff, slashing budgets, closing hospitals and reducing services would be bad enough in its own right but at a time of rapidly increasing demand on NHS services, it's a recipient for disaster.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>The Productivity crisis:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The UK is suffering a massive decline in productivity<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/25/what-is-productivity-why-uk-poor">, lagging 35% behind Germany and 30% behind the USA</a>. This means that the average UK worker has to work an hour in order to achieve the same level of economic output that a German worker does in 39 minutes. Unhappy and exploited workers don't work as hard as those who feel valued and we'll paid. Well educated workers are more productive than those who have suffered a poor education system. If the UK wants to resolve the productivity crisis it needs to improve wages and working conditions and invest in education. The Tories have been doing the polar opposite for seven years. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Systemic Abuse of Disabled People:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The Tories have subjected disabled people to countless assessments in which they have to prove their disability to some corporate outsourcing giant. The assessment regime costs way more to administer than they do in reduced benefit payments. The Tory party constantly claim that the assessment regime is designed to get disabled people into work, but they deliberately laid of 1,500 disabled people by shutting down Remploy factories. Also, In March 2016, 309 Tory MPs voted to cut the employability support allowance by £1,500 per year. The government’s own figures admit that thousands of disabled people have died within weeks of being found 'fit for work’ and stripped of their benefits. All this has resulted in the Tory government being severely criticised by the UN for 'severe violations of disabled people's rights’. The list goes on.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Child Poverty:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-accused-being-denial-over-10038973">Since 2010 the number of children living in poverty has risen to 400,000</a>. The Tory cuts to child welfare and in work benefits for parents are setting plunge yet another 25,000 kids into lives of poverty. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Railway mishandling:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">As a result of the Tory privatisation of the railways the UK has the <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/british-trains-cost-five-times-9785781">most expensive, most overcrowded and least reliable rail service of any developed European nation</a>. In spite of this, the corporations who operate the rail services take more in government subsidies than it costs to run the entire system under British rail. Vast swathes of the UK rail system are now owned by foreign governments who use the money we pay for our rail travel to improve their own rail systems</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Lowering Corporation Tax:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Over their seven years in power the Tories have cut corporation tax paid by the biggest multinationals from 28% to just 20%. By 2020 they plan to cut it to just 17%. This means that the UK has got one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the developed world. <a href="http://www.uhy-uk.com/news-events/news/companies-in-uk-enjoy-one-of-lowest-corporation-tax-rates-of-major-global-economies/">The global average is 27 % and the G7 average is 33.4%</a>. As a side note, it is therefore highly ironic that when Labour propose a 26% rate, people assume that corporations will flee the country. All reversing the Tax cuts would do is bring the UK into line with other developed countries. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Unaffordable homes:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">since 2010 the Tories have overseen the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/27/jeremy-corbyn-to-renew-attack-on-tories-housebuilding-record">lowest levels of housebuilding since the 1920s</a>. This is in spite of increasing demand. This combination of weak supply, high demand and collapsing wages has pushed house prices to their most unaffordable level ever. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>School Privatisation:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">An awful lot of people don't seem to realise that the Tories have been forcibly privatising thousands of state owned schools for free, into the hands of unaccountable pseudo charities, often into the hands of Tories party donors. In the case of academy chains like Perry Beachers, they often top slice education budgets to pay six figure salaries to academy bosses and rip off the taxpayer through outsourcing. This Tories don't care about this, they hate the public sector with a burning ideological passion. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Rip of tuition fees:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">With the assistance of their lying lib dem colleagues the Tories introduced £9,000 per year tuition fees for university students. Students now face the highest fees in the world for study at public universities. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/55f4a6f6-3eab-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a">The fees are so high that two out of three students will never be able to pay of their debts, despite paying a 9% aspiration tax on their disposable income for pretty much their entire working lives</a>.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Food Bank Dependency</strong>: </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">the Tories have overseen a huge rise in food Bank Dependency since 2010. Over a million food parcels were handed by the trussell trust last year and they are just one of the food bank organisations. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/25/food-banks-report-record-demand-amid-universal-credit-chaos">Areas that have suffered the rollout of the Tories universal credit scheme have significantly higher rates of food Bank Dependency</a>. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Unqualified teachers:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">&nbsp;In 2010 the Tories changed the rules and scrapped the requirement that teachers actually be qualified for the job. Since then the education system has been flooded with unqualified teachers, presumably in an attempt to undermine the education system so schools can be flogged off to the private pseudo charities mentioned earlier. It is worth remembering that the man that oversaw this was Michael Gove. Remember, the man who claimed that 'we have had enough of experts’ during the EU referendum campaign. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Secret Courts:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">In 2013, with help from the so called liberal democrats, the Tories introduced a new law to create secret courts in which a person can have their sentence decided behind closed doors in secret courtrooms that they are not allowed to even enter. These secret courts don't just apply to terrorism related offences or criminal charges, they can be used in civil cases too. The cabinet minister responsible for this draconian piece of legislation was of course the then home secretary, Theresa May. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Privatisation:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Since 2010 the Tories have overseen more selling off of public assets than Thatcher in the 80s. Many of their privatisation scams have resulted in vast rip offs to the taxpayer; they sold of royal mail at over £1 billion below its market value; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/nov/17/northern-rock-sale-good-deal-for-taxpayers">they sold off publicly owned banks at massive losses to taxpayers</a>; <a href="http://www.nhsforsale.info/database/impact-database/market-failures/stps-and-privatisation.html">they have given away billions worth of NHS services</a>; they gave away thousands of school properties for free to unaccountable pseudo charities; <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/student-loans-sales-debt-private-companies-treasury-graduates-12bn-a7565716.html">they sold off the student loan books</a> and they sold off the UK government's stake in Eurostar for a fraction of what it cost us to set it up.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Social Care Crisis:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The Tories have slashed £4.6 billion from the social care budget at a time when it is so desperately needed. This has concluded with the <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/social-care-scandal-tory-cuts-9836261">biggest <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>increase in the death rate since the 1960s</a>, and is putting an immense amount of pressure on NHS services.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Outsourcing to tax Dodgers:</strong> &nbsp;</span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The Tories have bought giant outsourcing companies in to perform all sorts of government programmes. &nbsp;Huge numbers of these corporate leeches are now having their contracts renewed automatically with no cost benefit. The labour party have proposed a new law to ban outsourcing companies from receiving government contracts if they're based in tax havens. The Tories are quite happy to keep using taxpayer’s money to pay outsourcing companies to do the work the government should be doing themselves</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Fire service cuts:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">across their first term, the Tories slashed 30% off the fire service budget resulting in the loss of 10,000 fire service jobs and the closure of 39 fire stations. Across their second term they intend to slash another 20%. In 2015 the number of fire deaths increased by 17%. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Prison Chaos:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">UK prisons today are a hole of violence, widespread drug abuse, escapes, chronic understaffing and rising suicide rates. The UK prison system is in chaos. One of the worst examples of this is HMP Northumberland that was privatised by the Tories in 2014. This is supposed to be a training prison to teach prisoners so that they don’t reoffend upon release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>At this prison however, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38931580">a private contractors called Novus was giving prisoners pictures of peppa pig to colour in as their ‘training’, all at the taxpayers’ expense</a>. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Police Cuts:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Between 2010 and 2015, <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-cuts-tories-axe-another-4664981">the Tories axed 34,000 police jobs</a>. Between 2015 and 2020 they intend to axe tens of thousands more. The police managed to juke the statistics by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30081682">not recording vast numbers of crimes</a>, but the impact of these police cuts can’t be hidden off the violent crime statistics, which have increased by 96% between 2012 and 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Flood Defence Cuts:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">For each £1 spent on flood defence spending the nation saves £8 in avoided damage and disruption. Several of the areas that had their flood defence schemes cancelled in 2010 ended up suffering severe flooding. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Democracy under Threat:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The proposed Great repeal Bill is an astonishing assault on the concept of democracy and accountability. If this bill passes it will give Tory Government Ministers the ability to rewrite tens of thousands of UK laws with no parliamentary scrutiny. If people supported Brexit because the EU is too undemocratic, it would take an astounding display of Doublethink for them to now support Theresa May. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>The Snoopers Charter:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Theresa Mays snooper Charter is the most extreme state surveillance law ever introduced in a developed nation. It allows over 20,000 government employees (including non-terrorism related bodies like the food standards agency) to trawl through the private communication data of innocent people. It also allows the state to tell lies in court in order to secure convictions.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Pandering to Dictators</strong>: </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Theresa May and the Tory’s love sucking up to tyrannical despots like the Islamist Saudi Monarchy and the <a href="https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-5076-Theresa-May-The-dictators-dream#.WTVIpWMkvIV">Turkish autocrat Recep Erdogan</a>. The disgraced Liam Fox was even in the Philippines to suck up to the brutal dictator Rodrigo Duterte and talk up our ‘shared values’.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>The Hinkley Point C Scandal:</strong></span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Tories have agreed to bribe the French and Chinese into building us<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>a nuclear power station by promising to use taxpayers cash, to pay them double the market rate for electricity for 35 years, then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/30/hinkley-point-nuclear-waste-storage-costs">cover up the clean-up cost at the taxpayers’ expense too</a>. The reason we have to do this is that the Tories privatised the UK’s nuclear expertise in the 1990s, and the private company was then allowed to be purchased by the french government. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Rising Inequality:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">While the UK workers suffered the worst collapse in the value of their wages on record, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/26/recession-rich-britains-wealthiest-double-net-worth-since-crisis">the tiny super rich minority literally doubled their wealth</a>. There is an abundance of evidence showing that the more unequal a society is, the less economically prosperous it is, and the unhappier people are. Take from the poor, give to the rich, that’s always been to Tory agenda.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Mental Health funding Cuts:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The Tories love talking up how much they care about the issue of mental health, but their actual track record is disgraceful. Between 2010 and 2015 they <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31970871">slashed £600 million from mental health services</a>. They’re still slashing away now. In fact, they even advised the corporate outsourcing companies carrying out their disability assessments to actively discriminate against disabled people.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>Contempt for Human Rights:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">Theresa May has a burning contempt for human rights. She has expressed her desire the tear up the European Convention on Human Rights many times, and join Belarus as the only European nation that doesn’t adhere to the human rights legislation that was bestowed on Europe by Winston Churchill and Clement Atlee.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><strong>In Work Benefit Cuts:</strong> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;">The majority of people receiving non pension related benefits in the UK are the in work poor not the unemployed. When the Tories slash things like housing benefit and tax credits what they’re doing is actually further impoverishing the working poor. Ironically, they have made life harder for those in work while spouting the Orwellian propaganda of, ‘making work pay’.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 6pt 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you judge the Tories by their dismal record in government, then there is actually no reason to vote Tory at all. The only reason to say things like ‘judge us on our record is that they are assuming that the British Public are too intellectually lazy to actually judge their political record, and are just going to assume that their record is good because their boasting about it. Perhaps were not quite as thick as the Tory’s assumed us to be? We’ll find out in a few days…</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-25140790633579453502017-06-02T07:15:00.000-07:002017-06-02T07:15:04.885-07:00The 'Magic money Tree' Tory Manifesto <div style="border-image: none; text-align: justify;"> <a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FIRc42X6Dls/WTFyubmXT_I/AAAAAAAAAuQ/Zos4FhZzkL4cx9gLbgNCO87syfOe3YeEwCLcB/s1600/MoneyTree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="620" height="171" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FIRc42X6Dls/WTFyubmXT_I/AAAAAAAAAuQ/Zos4FhZzkL4cx9gLbgNCO87syfOe3YeEwCLcB/s320/MoneyTree.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="line-height: 150%;">You will hear lots of talk of costing at this election. As always, debates have ensued about which party is best fit to run the economy and whose policies are the most cost effective. I am going to do another blog post about the specific policies, but needless to say the Tory’s accusations that Labours ‘sums don’t add up are nothing short of ridiculous. </span></div><div style="border-image: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">It is extremely ironic that the Tory’s spent days attacking the <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017">Labour Manifesto</a>with accusations that ‘their sums don’t add up’ only to release a <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto">Conservative manifesto with absolutely no sums in it whatsoever</a>. If your party rabbits on endlessly about being sensible with economics and then chickens out at the first sign that you might have to do some actual maths, then how can you expect anyone to take you seriously on fiscal credibility? Even the Lib Dems managed to produce a manifesto with costings, but the Tory’s produced an absolute farce of a document filled with 50 uncosted policies.</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The uncosted Tory manifesto pledges include planting more trees and investment in infrastructure. <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/05/18/the-tory-manifesto-is-an-uncosted-shambles">Perhaps the worst example of this though is their £8bn for the NHS pledge</a> (a plan that was in their last manifesto that they haven’t carried through yet). The plan doesn’t even say whether it is supposed to be a significant annual increase (£40 billion over the five year period) or just £1.6 billion a year, which would be a tiny fraction of what is needed to undo the damage done to the NHS through seven years of funding cuts at a time of increasing demand. In the end the Tory’s admitted it was neither, but rather a policy of spending £8bn more in the last year of the government than they are spending at the moment. What happens in between is a complete mystery; is this money just a recycling of George Osborne’s £8bn pledge from 2015? Is that £8bn adjusted for inflation? Where is that money even going to come from? To have so much uncertainty and mystery in your spending plans is clearly not the action of the party of economics.</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">On to the Labour manifesto, they have provided a separate document where Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has outlined his spending plans. It is obviously impossible for these costings to be 100% accurate because to do that would involve equipping the shadow chancellor with the ability to predict the future. The UK could be struck by a massive terrorist attack or a natural disaster at any time over the next five years, which would throw the calculations out of sync with one another. The UK will definitely be hit with a Brexit recession and we don’t know how big that will be (except to say that a ‘no deal’ strop would obviously be significantly worse than a negotiated settlement). The difference here was that at least Labour tried. They said where the money would come from and put their sums out there to be scrutinised. The Tory’s seem to think they can avoid this simply by not bothering to do any!</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">One of the most extraordinary things is that both Labour and the Lib dems have managed to pull together fully costed manifestos at such short notice. The Tory’s on the other hand, who let me remind you announced the bloody election, have cobbled together an absolutely farcical document. So given that the Tory’s haven’t explained where the money is going to come from for literally dozens of their policies, surely those voters that generally toll the Tory line, should be having the time of their life shouting ‘magic money trees’ at the conservatives? But no! They have all gone quiet! They blabbered on about magic money trees when Labour announced their fully costed plans to provide free school meals and scrap tuition fees to primary school children. Yet when their beloved Tory party releases a manifesto so full of funding holes it is almost laughable, they have all suddenly disappeared into hiding.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Perhaps they are all trying to rote learn the Tory HQ response to the accusation that the Dementia Tax is an absolute abomination. Who Knows? At least the magic money tree hypocrites have all shut up for a little bit.</span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-17307319796194849592017-05-31T12:24:00.000-07:002017-06-02T07:21:05.579-07:00Why Is Theresa May Running Scared of TV Debates'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VUG1wMoQFCM/WS8YB3zpKGI/AAAAAAAAAuA/7DcCjfLI0H4GfJPVDimee-zsM18ZNQKswCLcB/s1600/3E12AA0F00000578-4293464-image-a-56_1488978893047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="634" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VUG1wMoQFCM/WS8YB3zpKGI/AAAAAAAAAuA/7DcCjfLI0H4GfJPVDimee-zsM18ZNQKswCLcB/s320/3E12AA0F00000578-4293464-image-a-56_1488978893047.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May is not only a liar, but a coward. Let’s remind ourselves of some of the ‘achievements’ of her government recently. Firstly, after six long months of patriotic flag waving she finally cobbled together a Brexit plan, showing that the three&nbsp;tory Brexiters, two of whom are part of Mays cabinet, utterly failed to come up with a post Brexit plan before the UK decided to vote Leave. Secondly, it emerges that the ‘plan’ is not so much of a plan at all, but rather a series of empty demands that basically constitute threat to the EU of ‘cave in to our ridiculous demands, or we will self-detruct our own economy’. Thirdly, days after setting the ball rolling on Brexit Theresa May calls a general election, presumably so people will judge her on her empty sloganeering in 2017 rather than her handling of the Brexit process in 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Presumably then, you would think that Theresa May would have quite a lot to say for herself when it comes to talking to Jeremy Corbyn and the other candidates. We will never<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>actually know if this is the case however, because even in spite of Jeremy Corbyn rightfully going back on his commitment to not taking part in any debates without May also being there, Theresa May has repeatedly refused to stand up and talk to her rivals in a debate setting. Instead, in the BBC General Election Debate she has chosen home secretary. Amber Rudd, to get up and do her arguing for her. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>When Confronted by Journalists today about why she was refusing to appear May did a force crackpot laugh before going on to explain that it is somehow Jeremy Corbyn&nbsp;who is at fault for wanting to appear on the telly quite often: as if putting themselves and their views out there for the public to analyse is some deeply dishonest thing for political leaders to do. May then finished by saying that Corbyn should be paying more attention to the Brexit negotiations. There are so many things wrong with this response though that it’s frankly laughable. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brexit Negotiations</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, If Theresa May was so concerned about the importance of Brexit negotiations, why on earth did she call this self-serving snap election in the first place? How is it even possible for her to think that the public are thick enough to buy her excuse that the Brexit negotiations are so suddenly incredibly important to her, when she was the one who decided to put the Brexit negotiations on hold for two months to do this election while she thought she had an unassailable lead in the polls? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>In what way&nbsp;does setting the clock ticking on the most complex and risky set of negotiations in a long time, and then calling a two month holiday in order to conduct a completely opportunistic snap election, demonstrate anything other than the contempt for a serious situation that she is accusing Jeremy Corbyn of? Besides this is an extremely odd statement for Theresa May to make as leader of the Tory’s. The only way to Interpret Mays response in a way that doesn’t make her look like a massive hypocrite is that she actually thinks Jeremy Corbyn is going to become PM, otherwise why would he need to concentrate on refining his negotiating stance, instead of reaching out to members of the public?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">TV Debates</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Second, if the idea of appearing before and presenting your ideas to the public in the form of a debate is such a laughable concept, why has Theresa May decided to send Amber Rudd to present the Tory’s ideas for her? If the whole concept of appearing on TV is so contemptible, then why doesn’t she just empty chair the Conservatives, considering it is clearly such a waste of time to participate in televised debates? This may seem petty, but this halfway solution is yet another example of directionless leadership. She decided not to go, then instead of admit she was wrong and actually turn up, she is sending one of her underlings to act as her human bullet shield. She is to cowardly to appear herself because she knows she would get eviscerated, but she’s too directionless to stick by her decision so she is sending out Amber Rudd to take all the criticism on her behalf. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Forced Laugh</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a lot you can tell from a forced laugh. Perhaps Theresa May’s image consultants have told her to try and lighten up a bit because her tendency to glare menacingly at political opponents and make disgusted faces is putting people off? We all remember that bonkers head back, open mouth fake laugh that she did at PMQ’s. When she attempts to laugh her persona goes from snarky to absolutely deranged, so lightening up hardly seems to be the best approach. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet both this forced laugh approach and her passive aggressive nature of speaking whenever she says anything serious, is perhaps the best indication of why she won’t do the TV debates. Anyone who has seen any of Mays performances at PMQs will know that she is an incredibly weak public speaker who relies almost entirely on the tactic of regurgitating pre written answers and snide personal attacks. As todays encounter with the journalist demonstrated, she is clearly absolutely hopeless when she has to think on her feet and has been outwitted by Jeremy Corbyn countless times. ­­­In 2015, David Cameron famously wimped out of having a Scottish Independence Debate with Alex Salmond, but he wasn’t cowardly enough to evade the 2015 election debates completely. Theresa May knows that she is even more pitifully inept in an unscripted environment than Cameron was, so the only way she can avoid getting pummelled in the television debates is by refusing to take part. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Conclusion</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Something I applaud the broadcasters for in this situation is allowing the debates to go ahead regardless of Mays refusal to participate. Any attempt to allow her to simply boycott the debates entirely would clearly be heavily biased in favour of the Tory’s, as it would be preventing the other parties from criticising her government’s policy in a debate setting. Thus the only unbiased option is to carry on with the debates regardless. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-68098465879606619622017-05-24T12:21:00.001-07:002017-05-24T12:21:39.285-07:00How not To Talk about Terrorism<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-44_GXJxxzAE/WSXc8B499eI/AAAAAAAAAtw/BLlMVozwHAE0_tzFsPKwcxm0ejK6AYvGQCLcB/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="780" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-44_GXJxxzAE/WSXc8B499eI/AAAAAAAAAtw/BLlMVozwHAE0_tzFsPKwcxm0ejK6AYvGQCLcB/s320/untitled.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I have thought for a long time about what to write about the appalling attack that occurred at the Manchester Arena, during an Ariana Grande concert. The most important thing about this, is to make sure we pay our respects to the bereaved and victims of this barbarity. Many of those effected are young children, who were simply trying to enjoy music. Even against a backdrop of the violence going on every day in the Middle East, the idea that anyone would dare to commit such a disgusting atrocity on these people, is a tragedy in and of itself. </span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is also extremely important to praise all those that helped: The ambulance workers, the hospitals, the venue staff, the local hotel workers, the taxi drivers, the blood donors and the people of Manchester deserve to be recognised as people who prove what is great about Britain. They prove beyond doubt, that whatever terrorists do in order to divide us and make us fear each other, they will lose, because good people will always show bravery and solidarity when required. This is of course the right way to react to acts of Terrorism. However, there can also unfortunately be misguided or wrong reactions to it, this is what I will address in this blog post. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Silence on Politics</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, to a certain extent it is important to put aside any political differences that we might have in order to mourn the victims of this attack. Labour voters are of course in no more of a better or worse position to help then conservative voters. Although the forthcoming general election, may have led to bitter differences in opinion, we are all human beings and are all deserving of the same rights as each other. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In spite of this I think a moratorium on all political discourse is the wrong approach, which is why it saddens me to see some people trying to use this attack to silence political debate. They have tried to claim that talking about any other political issue at the moment is somehow disrespectful to the victims. I profoundly disagree: The people who commit barbarous acts of terrorism, don’t do it for no reason. They do it for impact. They want to fundamentally change the places they attack, and the people who live there. If we stop what we are doing or refuse to engage on a political level, they have succeeded in changing our daily lives and undermining our democracy by stifling the democratic engagement that would have otherwise gone ahead. The UK political parties are making a very dangerous decision indeed by suspending all their political campaigns out of misguided respect, in that they are sending terrorists of all types a message that they can disrupt democracy by carrying out their violent attacks during elections. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In addition to helping the terrorists achieve their aims silencing political discourse leaves the floor open for depraved opportunists, to shout their nonsense. Take the concern trolls who in the past days have accused Jeremy Corbyn of making ‘Political Capital out of people’s deaths under the guise of praising the emergency services’ (</span><a href="https://twitter.com/SocialistVoice/status/866810378646421504"><span style="font-family: inherit;">22, May 2017</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>and even ‘endorsing’ (</span><a href="https://twitter.com/Tim_R_Dawson/status/866903742725193728"><span style="font-family: inherit;">23rd, May 2017</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">) the attack. Problem being, Corbyn didn’t try and politicise the attack. He simply used the platform of Twitter to express his condolences, as by the way did Theresa May and Tim Farron. Should we just automatically treat it as political opportunism when Corbyn does it, but treat it as generous and tame when May does it? Of course not, that is an utterly hypocritical response to the situation. This is clearly an example of right wing concern trolls using the attack to do exactly what they are accusing Jeremy Corbyn of doing. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/gordonsagit/status/867163805746438145"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Twitter was also rife with people taking an old Sadiq Khan quote out of context</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, in order to accuse the mayor of London of saying that terrorist attacks are ‘part and parcel of living in a big city’ (22 May, 2017) clearly in an attempt to smear all Muslims as filth. If any of these cowardly racists had bothered to do their research before posting such blatant lies on the internet they would have found that the full quote from Sadiq Khan was in fact ‘<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you have to be prepared for these sorts of things, you have to be vigilant, you have to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you have to support the security services’. </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A statement that is very clearly true and sensible to make. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m going to continue to write about politics for the next few days. Not because I don’t care about the victims but because I don’t want to let the terrorist who did this win by stopping me from living my life as I would have done if this attack had never happened, which would have been writing about politics and engaging with democracy.</span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Hatred and Bigotry</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The extreme right always delight in terrorism. Whenever an attack happens they gleefully flock to social media to spread their hatful ideologies, and bask in the attention they get by doing so. While some of these people are thick, many of them are intelligent enough to know exactly what they are doing. Hard right commentators like Nigel Farage always spring into action the moment an attack happens. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One culprit I had the displeasure of stumbling across was Telegraph Journalist Allison Pearson. Not only did she call for a state of emergency like France has, but </span><a href="https://twitter.com/allisonpearson/status/866919296919904256"><span style="font-family: inherit;">she also called for the introduction of internment camps on British soil</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. So according to Pearson’s logic, we should abolish the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ principle, so that potential ‘suspects’ can be rounded up and locked in camps. Of Course, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pearson doesn’t give a damn that the introduction of internment camps in Northern Ireland was extremely counterproductive</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, with the injustice of imprisonment without trial causing a massive rise in violence. Neither does Pearson care that we should be using an effective response to terrorism, she just simply doesn’t like the fact that we live in a country with liberal values such as the presumption of innocence. She clearly would like nothing better to live in a police state where the government can drag people out of their houses and lock them in camps without any actual evidence that they have done anything wrong. The atrocity in Manchester is nothing more to her than a glorious opportunity to use other peoples suffering to promote her beloved far right fantasy. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Katie Hopkins is, as we all know, a relentless self-publicist who spews extreme eight views because they garner her more and more attention. Whenever an atrocity happens this despicable woman pops up to spew some ridiculous comment, and then revel in the tide of hate she has triggered, pointing and sneering at leftists who call attention to her comments. This time she had the nerve to take to social media to declare that ‘We need a final solution’. Make no mistake, use of the term ‘final solution’ was no accident, the phrase obviously has horrifying Nazi and holocaust connotations. Hopkins just decided that the wave of publicity she is going to get for using such an awful reference was worth possibly jeopardizing her job at LBC, or facing criminal charges for hate speech. </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/when-did-britain-turn-into-huge.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If either of those things happen she can easily just play the victim card</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Whether Hopkins actually wants to see a holocaust of Muslims is beside the point, she might actually believe it or she might have just expressed the opinion for the cash, without believing it at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A Journalist from the Daily Telegraph called for the abolition of British values. A Journalist from the Daily Mail went a step further and called for a Holocaust against Muslims. These are views that would have found their only home on the BNP fringe in the 1970s, but the right wing press has clearly degenerated to such an extent these days that these views find their way into the mainstream. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">‘False Flag’ Accusations</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have seen a few people spreading the idea that the Manchester was a false flag attack orchestrated by the Tory government in order to improve their chances in the general election. I think that conspiracy theories about ‘false flags are deeply unhelpful for a number of reasons. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Its undeniable that the Tory government have spent the last seven years putting their ridiculous ‘let’s cut our way to growth’ ideological austerity agenda above the interests of the nation as a whole. They imposed extreme cuts on the armed forces, the police, the emergency services and hospitals. This of course would leave any nation vulnerable in the face of any terrorist attack, as the Tory’s put their economically illiterate cost cutting drive way above the safety of the British public. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, there is a huge difference between noting that the Tory’s spent seven years endangering the British public, and saying that they plotted this attack on purpose. Just imagine the ramifications if they had been caught out orchestrating such a plot. All it would take is one whistle-blower, and they would never be elected again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Yes their poll lead had more than halved since the beginning of the election campaign, but would they really risk deliberately planning a terrorist attack in order to cling on to power? In my view anyone making evidence-lacking like this is guilty of contaminating the political debate with extreme accusations. By doing this they don’t just discredit themselves, they discredit by false association all the reasonable people who oppose this horrifically malicious and incompetent government. </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Conclusion</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here I have outlined the wrong way to respond to the Manchester terror attack. How you choose to respond is very much up to you, whether it is showing solidarity with the victims via social media or directly helping those effected. I would urge everyone reading this not to stay silent, and not to tolerate those using this attack to spread lies and hatred.</span> </span></div></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-43725902351653109092017-05-15T06:34:00.000-07:002017-05-15T06:34:06.932-07:00Awful Arguments #8 - The Fantasy of Right Wing Patriotism <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y608FfsfJIU/WRmuOcTwZII/AAAAAAAAAtg/PNNB11lAvWYNCPWJkjtQ_y4CmCvZGWtSwCLcB/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y608FfsfJIU/WRmuOcTwZII/AAAAAAAAAtg/PNNB11lAvWYNCPWJkjtQ_y4CmCvZGWtSwCLcB/s320/untitled.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the arguments used by people on the right of the political spectrum in order to defend their position is that they are ‘patriotic’ and that in contrast the left are ‘unpatriotic’. We will be seeing a lot of this over the next few weeks as Theresa May, in her refusal to debate her political opponents, furiously spews lies about how Jeremy Corbyn wants to subvert the will of the British people on Brexit, while defending her record with meaningless clichés. While not all right wing people use this absolute dreg of an argument, it is undeniably a prevalent one. It is also worth noting here that I don’t consider myself particularly patriotic, as I see no reason not to respect and support a variety of different cultures. As I result, I will not be painting an image of the left as the true defenders of patriotism. If you are left wing, consider yourself patriotic or don’t, as long as it doesn’t devolve into blind violence or aggression, It really doesn’t bother me. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What I will be arguing against in this blog post are the ideas that the right are the defenders of patriotism, that they have respect for ‘British values’. and that it is somehow unpatriotic to take action that improves your lives or conditions. A recent example of this would be Theresa Mays reaction to the anti-trump protests. After she was in America pandering to a vicious right wing demagogue, Theresa May had the gall to accuse her protests of not supporting our ‘special relationship’. Another example is when Theresa May stood on the steps of Downing Street and announced she was calling a general election not so we will judge her on her flag waving and not her actual handling of Brexit, but in the ‘national interest’. Meanwhile, the right wing press issue copious amounts of bullshit about how the left are dangerous for this country. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In terms of British values it is true that a large proportion of right wing people would like to see the monarchy and the House of Lords remain powerful institutions in our society. However this can hardly be seen as patriotism. There is nothing patriotic in actively disliking the idea of Britain becoming a properly democratic republic. In fact, supporting then upholding of anti-democratic powers and privileges held by a family of German and Greek origin can actually be seen as less patriotic than wanting the monarchy abolished! Being opposed to the ideas of pro-democracy activists who want to abolish the monarchy, saving the country millions in tax dollars (god knows right wing people are always banging on about lower taxes!) is an extremely reactionary and contradictory position to take, which relies on an extremely vague definition of ‘British values’.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another classic point that the right like to raise when defending their patriotism is the right are far more supportive of British wars. Accusations of unpatriotic have been made against objectors throughout history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Quakers and Peace activists have been vilified. Throughout World War One and World War Two, people that objected to the bloodshed were at best imprisoned. Response to war always plays an important part in our elections: Most recently one of the arguments made against Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister is that he used to be chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, and if elected would risk our security by refusing to launch a nuclear bomb. Indeed, anti-war protests at the biggest demonstration in British history, those protesting the 2003 Iraq, were maligned and even dismissed as pro – Saddam Hussein by Tony Blair.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On wages and working conditions, right wing politicians will tell you that they are standing up for British workers, while actively making life worse for them. It is difficult to see how maintaining stagnant wages, burdening students entering the job market and clamping down on workers’ rights to strike can even be seen a remotely patriotic. The right wing critic of trade unionism will defend their malice towards workers by claiming that strikers are ‘holding the country to ransom’ however if we pick this apart, this is an extremely one sided view to take. Isn’t it even fairer to say that bosses are holding the country to ransom when they undermine wages and working conditions to such an extent that people refuse to work? Even if you don’t accept that strikes are an effective tactic in improving wages and working conditions, you at least have to accept that mistreatment towards workers is about the farthest away it is possible to get from loving your people.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Right wing elements in British society have a long history of being anti-patriotic. Inspired by the rise of fascism in the 1930s, dozens of Tory politicians and other establishment figures became involved in unpatriotic and anti-Semitic activities. Whilst the Tory Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin was busy appeasing Nazi Germany, scores of Tory’s joined secretive far right organisations such as the pro-Nazi Anglo-German Link and the disgustingly anti-Semitic (and largely forgotten) Right Club, which had stated the purpose of ridding the Tory Party of Jewish Influence. One extremely notable member of the Right Club was Tory turncoat </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/contrasting-fates-turing-sempill-war.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lord Sempill who spent the 1920s and 1930s as a paid spy for Japan and continued to aid the Japanese even after Britain and Japan were at war</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Although Winston Churchill was obviously one of the exceptions to this rise in Nazi sympathising in the Tory Party, he undeniably used his influence to protect Semphill from being exposed as the traitor he certainly was. The Tory’s were not alone in embracing fascism in the 1930s, many Labour MPs defected to join Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists, but the Labour Party themselves never openly embraced fascism to the same extent as the Tory’s.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the core tactics of the Thatcher regime was the divide and rule strategy, whereby sections of society were set against each other in order that they didn’t stand together against the common enemy: the profoundly unpatriotic Tory Party. The treatment of Industrial workers during this time period was indicative of this divide and rule strategy. To use terms such as ‘the enemy within’ to describe the hard working industrial workers who had provided the backbone of Britain’s prosperity from the industrial revolution onwards, was an absolutely clear demonstration that Tory interests were at odds with the interests of vast swathes of the British population. Countless core services that were built up and the expense of the British taxpayer were sold off for a pittance, often to foreign buyers. Look for example at the eight nuclear facilities that were privatised for the pitifully small fee of £2.1 billion in 1995. These taxpayer funded facilities eventually fell into the hands of French company EDF. The same can be said for German ownership on the railway companies, France’s ownership of the main water suppliers, India’s ownership of steel companies, Spans ownership of Britain’s biggest airports, to Bermuda’s ownership of HMRC Tax offices. This entire ideology is extremely unpatriotic. Small state Conservativism is in affect a policy of destroying the British state from within, in order to distribute power and wealth to the few, whether they are British or not. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another area in which the right are extremely unpatriotic is tax dodging. A great number of extremely wealthy right wing people do everything they can to minimise the social contribution they should make through taxation. There are so called left wing people who dodge tax as well like Ken Livingstone, but the right win g can count many more serial tax dodgers among their numbers. The Tory Party played an instrumental role in creating this </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/tory-tax-scandals-and-some-new-tax.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">tax dodging bonanza by abolishing capital controls in the 1980s. This is no surprise either. The Tory’s have gathered millions of pounds in donations from serial tax dodgers such a Michael Ashcroft, Phillip Green and George Robinson</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Former PM David Cameron inherited a fortune from his father’s leeching tax dodging empire. Even celebrity Tory supporter Gary Barlow is a blatant Tax dodger. If there is any talk of introducing regulation to stop the super-rich, they immediately threaten to leave the country! Recall the Tory accusation that striking workers are ‘holding the country to ransom’, how exactly is threatening to up sticks and leave when you are asked to pay your fair share not a much more extreme example of holding people to ransom? Tax dodging is nothing but the complete refusal to contribute to your country and its people, motivated by nothing but pure self-interest. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When the London Olympics happened in 2012 the entire country was wrapped up in a hysterical fit on nationalistic flag waving. For a few weeks we could forget about the austerity and surveillance state measures being implemented by the Tory/ Lib Dem coalition. That said, some people were engaging in nationalism of a very different sort. </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072639/Tory-MP-Aiden-Burley-Nazi-stag-night-French-ski-resort.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take former Tory MP’s Aidan Burleys comments about the Olympic opening ceremony</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. He hated it because it celebrated the NHS and Multiculturalism, which like it or not are now fundamental parts of British life. </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/aug/13/dailymail-twitter"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take the Daily Mails racist rant about mixed race families and their accusations that several of Britain’s most successful Olympic athletes (Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah etc.) shouldn’t be considered British at all because they happened to be born abroad</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Whilst the majority of people celebrated the achievements of our athletes, the right wing continued to churn out their unpatriotic nonsense.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since the 2008 recession happened, the right wing press have been scrambling around desperately in order to find a way to blame ordinary working people. </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9416809/You-cant-blame-capitalism-for-this-shambles.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Daily Telegraph wrote a pitifully economically inept article in which it tried to argue that it was ordinary people not the neoliberal deregulation of the banks that caused the recession</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, arguing that British workers lack rigor and seriousness. According to Telegraph the reason that Britain is going through a prolonged recession has nothing to do with the type of wealthy capitalist billionaire who holds the country to ransom if they don’t get everything their way, it is due to British people being somehow less likely to do their jobs properly than someone in another country!</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">A similar point was made in the book Britannia unchained by Tory MPs Pritti Pattel, </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;">Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Skidmore, Elizabeth Truss and Dominic Raab. Here they make the point that because British people are so lazy, this means that wages must be slashed, workers’ rights must be done away with and unions destroyed in order to increase productivity. The problem is that the whole argument is based upon lies, the average full time worker in the UK works longer hours than the average worker anywhere else in the EU except Austria and Greece, and the average age of retirement in the UK is one of the highest in the OECD. To make up lies and disparage workers as inherently lazy just so you can bombard them with yet more cuts to their social security, is a stunningly clear case of yet more unpatriotic behaviour from the right. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is difficult to see how these people manage to hate so much about Britain and engage in such unpatriotic behaviour, yet continue to claim to be patriots. I believe the answer lies in the fact that they insulate themselves in a world of wealth and privilege. A world where the barmy neoliberal ideology of ‘greed is a virtue’ is gospel. A world where the so called free market is unquestionable and where anyone who opposes it is the ‘enemy’. A world where greed worshiping has supremacy over all other ideals, even patriotism.</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-39968819675318672672017-04-28T06:27:00.000-07:002017-05-24T12:23:11.042-07:00Le Pen and the Dangers of 'Detoxifying' the Far Right<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ByhIvdPDl-o/WQNDAxhkJQI/AAAAAAAAAtQ/dCw2V6BBxoYLmsNGV5Eupy0zGxc6KCXbwCLcB/s1600/161114152205-marine-le-pen-france-flag-super-tease.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ByhIvdPDl-o/WQNDAxhkJQI/AAAAAAAAAtQ/dCw2V6BBxoYLmsNGV5Eupy0zGxc6KCXbwCLcB/s320/161114152205-marine-le-pen-france-flag-super-tease.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Almost every article about Marine Le Pen makes reference to her supposed detoxification. She is supposed to be a modernising figure in French nationalism, driving it away from its primal instincts and towards a more reasonable and centre ground approach. An approach that can appeal to all stripes of French voter, rather than just those with bigoted opinions. Indeed, Le pen seems more than happy to cater this image and thus have more praise heaped on her by the media. We most recently saw this strategy with Len Pen announcing one day after making it through to the second round of the French election that she was </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39696861?intlink_from_url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/f671cc6e-8cdd-4351-90d1-fcc3bae18534/france-presidential-election-2017&amp;link_location=live-reporting-story"><span style="font-family: inherit;">stepping temporarily down as president of the National Front (FN) in order to stand as an independent</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The move is obviously largely a symbolic gesture to win over some voters from the now defeated, candidate Fillon. Le Pen has made no signal that she intends to change policy, nor the people that she surrounds herself with. The most likely scenario should she win the French election would be a realignment with the FN, and an implementation of the most right governments, France has seen since the Second World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></span>&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’ve heard the media’s detoxification narrative before: a fringe group has cleaned up its act and joined the political mainstream like any other. Donald Trump’s first speech to congress, Nigel Farage appointed as leader of UKIP and Marine Le Pen temporarily steps aside as leader of a far right hate group: Different stories, same narrative. Both Liberal and right wing outlets have been telling themselves this fairy story for years, </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/french-election-blog-2012/2012/may/02/french-elections-front-national-different"><span style="font-family: inherit;">uncritically relaying assertions that Le Pen has got rid of the ‘knee jerk racists’</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and imagining that Le Pen took a principled stand against her father’s anti-Semitic beliefs. A recent article described her niece, the profoundly homophobic and racist Marion Le Pen, as ‘a political star. Beautiful and fervently catholic’. Countless reports describe the rift between Marine and her father, but conveniently decline to mention the fact that a </span></span><a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/presidentielles/2016/12/31/35003-20161231ARTFIG00092-marine-le-pen-emprunte-6-millions-d-euros-a-son-pere.php"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">€</span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">6 million loan from Jean-Marie </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/french-election-blog-2012/2012/may/02/french-elections-front-national-different"><span style="font-family: inherit;">bankrolled her presidential campaign</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Le Pens recent claim that France bears no responsibility for the 1942 roundup of over thirteen thousand Jews at a Paris velodrome should remind everyone that the FN are a deeply dishonest and disgusting organization. The men, women and children held at the Velodrome d’Hiver went to French internment camps and from there to Auschwitz. The roundup is just one example of the collaborationist Vichy regime active engagement in the Holocaust, which built on a long tradition of organized far right anti-Semitism in France. This led to the deportation of about seventy six thousand Jews. The state refused to recognize it as a French crime until more than fifty years later, when president Chirac admitted the nation’s responsibility in 1995. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Le Pen defended her comments saying that she was simply reiterating former president Francois Mitterrand and other state representative’s positions. While this is partially correct, it doesn’t tell the full story. Why would the leading candidate in the first round polls, especially one hell-bent on cleaning up her party’s image even say that? The controversy comes just as the mainstream right is trying to reframe the national narrative. Les’ Republicans candidate François Fillon famously claimed that France should not feel guilty about its former colonies: It didn’t invent slavery, and it was just trying to ‘share its culture’ with the people of the invaded countries. This is part of the rights broader strategy of making its stances on race and foreign policy seem commonplace and acceptable in wider society, notably by pretending that the past never happened. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The FN has been working on this same project for years. When Marine Le Pen says that she doesn’t think France bears any serious responsibility for the rounding up of thousands of Jews, she is secretly legitimizing all the racism and blatant xenophobia that the French far right have campaigned on for decades. It is this revisionism that the mainstream are helping to further. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">A Fascist Past</span></strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All the columnists and journalists attempting to paint Le Pen as a modernizing leader all fail to answer one vital question: How and when did the FN stop being a fascist organization? Some might say that the FN cannot be fascist in that Fascism was a uniquely interwar phenomenon, but to take this approach is to ignore their association with the Vichy regime and to discredit your own argument that the FN are moving away from Nazism, as the FN was formed in 1972. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Indeed, when the FN formed its rank and file was made up of ex Vichy militiamen former SS officers, soldiers in the fight against Algerian independence managed, to groups that make up the history of French Fascism like the PPF. The far right leaders who founded the FN had one vision and only one: </span><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Le_fascisme_est_il_actuel.html?id=yYQ_AAAAIAAJ&amp;redir_esc=y"><span style="font-family: inherit;">make Fascism relevant again</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. For over a decade they went to great lengths in various publications to offer up a revisionist version of history and analyze how the revolutionary nationalism of the Vichy regime might rebuild itself in the post war world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>You would be hard pressed to find a group with more direct links to the history they claim they are denouncing.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Contrary to popular belief, cultivating an image of themselves as moderate and detoxified is something fascist organizations tried to do since the end of the Second World War, even in France. In 1958 for example, the group Jeune Nation warned its members not to frighten new or young recruits with ideas that might shock them. The idea was that members should never mention race in connection with gas ovens ‘whatever measures we will have to take once we get in power’. They advised their activists to say repeatedly that a victory for the group would make the nations enemies pay a heavy price, but that there was no need to mention that the aforementioned price would likely be hundreds of thousands of deaths. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These postwar revisions laid the foundations for the National Front. </span><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9ECBDAAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA108&amp;lpg=PA108&amp;dq=%22Pour+un+ordre+nouveau%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=zTypuFENn2&amp;sig=5f-Jm9JyjC46gt0roE6n345akc0&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Pour%20un%20ordre%20nouveau%22&amp;f=false"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Revolutionary Nationalists would have to adapt to new ways of doing politics</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Alluding to the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini was get them nowhere. The Left represented less of a threat after the second world war, both the state and the economy had become strengthened. Serious measures had been taken throughout Europe to prevent the far right from ever gaining power again. All this made society less polarized. Armed mobilizations would no longer lead to power. Far right activists had to prove they could run, rather than overthrow. They needed to break out of their hole and recruit among broader layers of the population. An electoral front would allow them to reach peripheral supporters and transform them in their image. In order to successfully destroy the centrist democratic system fascists realized they would have to work within it, or face extinction. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Led by Jean Le Pen, with help from former PPF member Duprat, the Front initial platform focused on immigration, stressing economic and social questions rather than issues of racial purity. The organization presented itself as the voice of the social, popular and patriotic right. Le Pen was the figurehead of the party </span><a href="https://www.amazon.fr/Fran%C3%A7ois-Duprat-r%C3%A9inventa-lextr%C3%AAme-droite-National/dp/2207260216"><span style="font-family: inherit;">while Dupart came up with the slogans</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘Voters will always prefer the original to the copy’ and the Nazi inspired ‘a million employed are a million immigrants too many’. Jean Le Pen freely acknowledged that his party included currents that constituted the traditional French extreme right, from royalists to revolutionary nationalists. Duprat himself did not believe that a nationalist revolution was on the immediate agenda, but thought that the FN was the best way to get one. He and Le Pen also played a major role in holocaust denial, publishing a translation of British National Front member Richard Verall’s ‘Did six million really die?’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Detoxification</span></strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The French election in 2002 represented a significant turning point in the Front’s history. Jean Le Pen made it through to the second round, where Jacques Chirac defeated him. From here started both the mainstream rights radicalization and the far rights supposed detoxification. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Chirac was anxious to capitalize on his election victory. He believed he could make secularism, previously a large campaign strategy of the left, a right wing programme. Chirac set up a commission that led to the hijab being banned in schools in 2004, starting an islamaphobic spiral that shows no sign of relenting, as last summer’s ridiculous burkini ban demonstrated. Nicholas Sarkozy became the dominant political figure of the first decade of the new century. Some claimed that his 2007 presidential victory showed that he had neutralized the FN. Ultimately however his hyperactive, authoritarian racism merely legitimized the front, paving the way for their resurgence in 2012, when Marine Le Pen won the FN’s highest vote to date. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The FN took the 2002 defeat badly. The Party failed to break through the 20 percent barrier in the second round and then performed poorly in the 2007 election. Many members saw Jean Le Pen’s militant image as a problem holding the party back. Thus when his daughter took over she made detoxification a key feature of the party, distancing it from her father as well as from the overt fascism and anti-Semitism that had characterized its early years. However, this needs to be seen as nothing more than a change in image for three key reasons.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The Socialist Party has embraced an authoritarian security agenda. France has been under a permanent state of no tolerance policing and maximum security since early 2015. When a Socialist government pushes to incorporate a police state into the constitution, The FN’s draconian ideology no longer seems as dangerous. </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">The mainstream right has radicalized. Unable to secure enthusiastic support for neoliberal economics, subjects such as immigration and law and order have become the main talking points of the French right. This was shown clearly through mobilizations against gay marriage in 2013, but also through rising racist attitudes among right wing voters and an increasing readiness to back the FN in second round electoral contests. </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">Secularism has mutated into a form of bigotry, making racism and Islamophobia acceptable. This goes beyond hate speech and reinforces established tropes in FN propaganda: Identifying an enemy within that needs to be isolated and repressed and stigmatizing immigrants in cultural rather than racial terms. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this radicalizing environment the Front, aided by an indulgent media, has created for themselves the illusion of moderation. The FN has also prospered from the return of cold war myths targeting an ‘enemy within’ and the revival of colonial tropes that depict an unassimilable ‘other’, both of which breed an authoritarian agenda. Of course, the nation state has always defined itself by what it excludes, resorting to blind moral panics in times of national crisis. What has changed in French politics is the consensus surrounding security and secularism. By supporting a reactionary form of separation of church and state that excludes Muslims, the mainstream right have allowed Le Pen to quietly take hold of the Republican mantle, creating endless possibilities for her party to further discriminate against minorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The first presidential debate between the five leading candidates reminded everyone of the mistakes certain sections of the left have made in accommodating this. The radical left candidate Jean Melenchon reminded everyone that he supported the ban on conspicuous religious symbols in schools. He then tried to take Le Pen to task over wanting to outlaw the hijab on the street. Le Pen’s reply was telling: ‘we already do that in schools’. As far as the FN is concerned, if racism and authoritarian nationalism can be asserted in a respectable republican guise, why do it any other way? </span></span></div><h3 class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">Conclusion</h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fascism did not appear with a fully formed essence or fixed ideology. Its politics were forged in relation to its rivals and circumstances. It is not something that simply exists, it grows and spreads like a cancer upon the political landscape. The FN does not have an armed wing, does this make it any less dangerous? Today Le Pen is doing exactly what the postwar fascists set out to do: adapt the fascist legacy, reach out to a broad spectrum of voters and ‘transform them in our Image’.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The detoxification narrative has obscured the threat posed by the FN in a climate where those implementing the state of emergency are themselves radicalizing. Some FN members and supporters believe that a coming crisis will require the intervention of an authoritarian force in the shape of their party. Others believe they can win power through existing institutions, forging alliances with the mainstream rights socially authoritarian and radicalizing elements. These tensions form part of the process of the party’s development and that of the extreme right against Europe. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This process of development, combining the image of detoxification with an outsider status, can be interrupted and thrown off course, disrupted by various factors, not least the actions of its opponents. To be effective this is going to require much more than abstract appeals to anti-racist sentiment and the values of the republic.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-12238463679780844662017-04-24T08:01:00.000-07:002017-04-24T08:01:02.902-07:00GE17: Why this Election is Important<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_oeFdXCSNU/WP4SnldMn7I/AAAAAAAAAtA/JZZgDbJTYr8a2RIvxkXbXJik2T-USFjWwCLcB/s1600/General-Election-2017-794973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_oeFdXCSNU/WP4SnldMn7I/AAAAAAAAAtA/JZZgDbJTYr8a2RIvxkXbXJik2T-USFjWwCLcB/s320/General-Election-2017-794973.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May has called a snap general election. It should come as no surprise that she has done this not only to increase her parliamentary majority but so that the people of Britain will judge her on her empty platitudes and flag waving, rather than her actual handling of the Brexit process. Unsurprisingly though, all of the right wing tabloids flocked to the occasion to demand a ‘</span><a href="http://suttonnick.tumblr.com/post/159730158536/hendopolis-the-sun-blue-murder"><span style="font-family: inherit;">blue murder</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">’ and calling on May to ‘</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/19/crush-the-saboteurs-british-newspapers-react-to-general-election"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Crush the Saboteurs</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">’ in gleeful nods to their fascist supporting past. They fantasise of an end of leftism, of remain voters and most importantly the Labour Party.</span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Indeed, Many of Jeremy Corbyns political colleagues agree enthusiastically that a Corbyn is unelectable and should be replaced. And who could blame them? Labour is polling at 25 percent of the vote, with the conservatives trailblazing ahead of them with a twenty point lead. Allowing for caveats such as the unpredictability of UK politics and polling bias, it is difficult to see how Corbyns popularity ratings will be reversed in seven weeks. All we know that if it isn’t, </span><a href="https://marriott-stats.com/nigels-blog/uk-opinion-poll-tracker-latest/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Labour will be lucky to keep two hundred seats</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, let alone win the general election.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile, Theresa May seems intent on rebranding the conservatives as a beacon of the populist right, denouncing elites who find ‘your patriotism distasteful, your concerns about immigration parochial, your views about crime illiberal, your attachment to your job security inconvenient’. In nods to UKIP and even bigger indications that she has learnt a thing or two from the time she has spent with Trump, May attempts to be making mincemeat of the metropolitan left who she paints as trying to reverse the democratic mandate of the people. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This isn’t the state of British politics we are used to hearing about. The Tory’s have been generally thought of as the Party of the privileged elites while Labour have been generally good at courting the votes of the young as well as those of the working and lower middle classes. Sure attempts has been made by the Conservatives to appeal to the working classes before. However, I think any conservative would be hard pressed to think of a campaign by Cameron’s conservative party that didn’t use the idea that the conservatives are somehow the ‘party of economics’ as its main strategy for winning the votes of plebs. Meanwhile, it is unusual to see the Labour Party squabbling as bitterly over their leader and policy. People had got fairly used to Labours modernising image of promoting a ‘common people’ image, but never straying too far from the established consensus on economics or immigration. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So what changed? In brief, UKIP. After a dismal performance at the 2010 election under the Leadership of an old racist toff with the charisma of a flannel named Lord Pearson, Nigel Farage resumed the leadership at just the right the moment. As Labour continued to abandon its anti-austerity politics, the entire political terrain of the UK was skewed to the right through a series of moral panics about Islam, immigration, halal food and of course child sex abuse scandals, which in the case of those involving Pakistani men in the north of England, were convenient to every racist in the country. Farage began a populist campaign, ostensibly aimed at Labour supporting working class voters in the North, who he claimed were being sold down the river by a Labour establishment that cared more about multiculturalism than the innocence of our children. The idea of white innocence being corrupted by brown skinned people has obvious power in racist ideology, but so does pinning the blame for problems caused by austerity and neoliberalism on immigrants and people of a different skin colour. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/25589#.WP4NS2NwZMt"><span style="font-family: inherit;">UKIP didn’t actually succeed in winning over Labour voters, by and large</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Its biggest gains were in the north of England among working class conservative voters who presumably no longer bought into the notion that the conservatives were good with economics, and looked to Farage’s anti-immigration stance as a clear alternative. However, the widespread uptake of the claim that they were taking Labours voters was an important propaganda coup, even for the Labour Party, indicating their broad populist basis. Indeed in a desperate effort to appeal to disaffected Labour voters considering voting for UKIP, Labour happily jumped ship of reactionary ‘racist mug’ populism. The rewards of UKIPs strategy were clear: By 2015 they had won four million votes and successfully defined the election around the issue of immigration and force the EU onto the agenda. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Having won the 2015 general election majority with a comfortable majority, David Cameron still faced an uphill battle. How was he to stop the conservatives losing votes and pro Brexit tory MPs to UKIP? His solution was to play right into Farage’s hands and launch a referendum on the EU, announcing his intention to campaign for remain, thus hoping to kill the issue for a generation and stop UKIP stone dead. The victory for Brexit demonstrated that late in the campaign, millions of conservative voters had lost faith in the conservative values of ‘remain’ and thus the Cameron leadership. Theresa May had only quietly supported Cameron’s Remain campaign never straying too far into the spotlight to prevent her from rebranding herself come the opportunity.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While the conservatives were bickering over who should be the next leader, Labour were having their own leadership issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>At exactly the same time Labour should have been challenging the Tory’s over their divisions, anti Corbyn Labour MP’s decided to stage a mass walkout on the leader and throw and ultimately fruitless leadership contest. The reason I bring this up is that it has debilitated the Labour Party from the day Corbyn was first elected all the way up to this general election. Ultimately, </span><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/09/corbyn-blair-new-labour-momentum-progress/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tony Blair was right</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Labours factions do not belong in the same party. Their coexistence is at best awkward for both factions and at worst produces a horrifying cycle of internal warfare. This is not to suggest that Corbyn does not have any failings. If anything his main failing is naivety. Corbyn has attempted to reckon with the overpowering forces against him by placating his rivals and softening his rhetoric on key issues like NATO and nationalisation. The by-election result in Copeland earlier this year shows that Corbyns leadership strategy has failed to inspire many. A swing to the right that would be aided by an election loss for Labour, would be disastrous for the party. Leftists would be purged and Labour would go back to looking like a carbon copy of the conservatives. The two sides are likely to be driven apart in some form or another, either by means of a right wing split or an effective coup. But for the time being Corbyn is to entrenched to be shifted, and his opponents don’t dare split. So they’re stuck in a messy, violent, mutually destructive embrace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many people may be looking at the disarray of the Labour party, and consider voting for the Liberal Democrats. The argument can be made that if you are living in a constituency where the lib Dems are in with the largest shot of defeating the conservatives or UKIP then such a vote is warranted, however on the whole a vote for Tim Farron would be <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>a deeply misled move. Also, their years of propping up a Tory government – which led Britain to this calamitous moment – must be emphasised. </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tim-farron-liberal-democrat-leader-coalition-conservatives-tories-refuse-rule-out-a7691221.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tim Farron is on record committing his party once again to a coalition with the conservatives</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. He even </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/09/liberals-donald-trump-syria-missile-strikes"><span style="font-family: inherit;">sided with Donald Trump as soon as he started firing missiles at Syria</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. There is no party so demonstrably dishonest in modern political history. Unfortunately, many remain voters look to the Lib Dems as a new hope in a post Brexit country. In any case, while the Lib Dems might win a larger percentage of the overall vote this time around, our electoral system means that Lib Dem chances of winning a considerable number of seats to champion the remain cause are minimal. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With a Labour Party in an undeniably difficult situation and a conservative party pushing an opportunistic more UKIP than UKIP agenda</span><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/04/davidson-scottish-national-party-uk-may-elections/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">, you could be forgiven for thinking that Scotland is the main centre of opposition to Theresa Mays economically self-destructive Brexit</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Notably, of all the major parties, only voters for the Scottish National Party do not approve of Mays new policies such as forcing companies to publish statistics on how many ‘foreign’ workers they employ. This is not because Scottish voters are more enlightened than others in the United Kingdom It is because Scottish nationalism has deliberately harnessed itself to a progressive centre left prospectus for post British proseperity. Should the SNP do as well at this election as they did at the last one, then with or without permission from Theresa May Scotland are likely to call a second independence referendum and assert their independence from Brexit Britain. In a sense, SNP leaders Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have convinced a lot of Scots that Britain, with its decaying imperial legacy, is holding Scotland back in a political quagmire. In another, May is likely to prove them right. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa Mays job now, it seems, is to organize the transition to a new form of conservative politics with less emphasis on austerity and economic competence and more on racist populism. Amid a record period of declining living standards and economic stagnation, the currency of politics today is resentment. Unlike the Tory Party we saw under Cameron it is never just about the economy. Mays agenda is to shoot the UKIP fox. She aims to emulate the far right, not only to win votes but to force the Brexit negotiations to fail, in order to fulfil the Tory fantasy of turning Britain into a hard right tax haven. If she can rebuild the Tory machine while Labour breaks down her job will be done. However, May is likely to regret her commitments. If her support for putting immigration restrictions ahead of single market access bears fruit, if the UK sacrifices its economic position for political reasons, Scotland will bolt for it, and Mays job will become one of managed decline, and that will be ugly. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At this election, there might be some on the left who want to quietly resolve to the goal of trying to save the Labour Party without trying to win the election. I disagree with them, a catastrophic election defeat will only hasten the entire British lefts steady decline into political oblivion. The task of the British left needs to be too at best to kick Theresa May and the Tory’s out of power thus putting a halt to the economically ruinous elf destruct Brexit they are driving us towards, and at worst to be to strengthen the opposition significantly undermining the Tory’s hand in the Brexit negotiations. There is a lot at stake in this election, and the very worst we can do is be apathetic.</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-13710858728047997472017-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:002017-03-29T06:56:06.579-07:00The Torys are Driving Us Towards a Ruinious 'Self Destuct Brexit'! <br /><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c9r2G0bRRoQ/WNu8XfoFFgI/AAAAAAAAAsw/SuU7qUz8Pc0Q6F5-aAfswq9eCY35nMLvACLcB/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c9r2G0bRRoQ/WNu8XfoFFgI/AAAAAAAAAsw/SuU7qUz8Pc0Q6F5-aAfswq9eCY35nMLvACLcB/s1600/untitled.png" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In January, Chancellor Phillip Hammond alluded to the concept of self-destruct Brexit by saying that the Tory’s would scrap the social democratic model and turn the UK into a giant offshore tax haven, if our 27 former EU allies don’t cave into our ridiculous demands of giving a handful of cherry-picked corporations access to the single market and allowing us to scrap freedom of movement. A few days later, after six months of waiting, Theresa May gave her Brexit speech and confirmed that the ridiculous threat of launching a self-destruct Brexit is actually Theresa Mays ‘negotiating tactic’. Now even the Tory Brexit minister David Davies is warning his Tory colleagues to prepare for the nuclear Brexit that would happen if no satisfactory agreement with the EU can be reached. When article 50 is triggered later today, it will likely be the start of a long process of not just severing our relationship with Europe, but with heading towards an economically and politically destructive Brexit!</span></span></div><h3 style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Who Is Involved in self-destruct Brexit?</span></h3><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Self-destruct Brexit is in fact highly probable </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/john-redwood-economic-piracy-uk.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">because there are many people in the Tory Party who have been itching for years to scrap the social democratic model that protects workers and ordinary people, for the sake of turning the UK into a fanatically right wing, giant offshore corporate tax haven</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. The rabid right wing of the Tory party have been empowered by Brexit and they see it as the perfect opportunity to roll out their hard right agenda. Indeed, the debate is being framed in such a way by the right wing press that that when this incredibly unpopular hard right agenda is launched, the blame will be directed at the EU, rather than the rabidly right wing Tory’s who have always wanted it. </span></span></div><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In addition to this, we haven’t exactly got a great negotiating team laid out before us that can negotiate any deal with the EU. Just look at these people: Boris Johnson (a brazenly dishonest character who has insulted practically everyone he is going to have to negotiate with) Liam Fox (A man who should be in jail, not back in front bench poitics) and Theresa May (an incompetent version of Margret Thatcher). Such a debating team probably makes our 27 former EU allies want to split their sides with laughter, no give us the sort of deal we want!</span></span></div><h3 style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Ridiculous Demands</span></h3><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from the facts that a significant element of the Tory party actively want the Brexit negotiations to fail and that out debating team is truly pitiful, Theresa Mays demands from the EU are blatantly ridiculous. </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/theresa-mays-partial-free-trade-fantasy.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no way that the EU can agree to single market access for UK based banks, vehicle manufacturers and other corporations with the financial muscle to strong-arm the Tory’s into doing their bidding</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, while the rest of the UK economy gets locked out. Similarly, there is no way we can have any access to the single market and not accept freedom of movement. Such a deal would negate the fundamental aims of the European project.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even if I am wrong about the conservativeatives deliberately setting up the EU negotiations to fail and all the evidence pointing towards this is simply a series of horrendous coincidences, we are still undeniably stuck in a lose-lose situation. Either we somehow end up with staggeringly unrealistic and cherry picked Tory deal that rigs the economy even further in support of multinational corporations, or we get the social and economic devastation of a self-destruct Brexit!</span></span></div><h3 style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Have The Tory’s Investigated the consequences?</span></h3><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Judging by the evidence it seems like the answer to this question has to be a conclusive ‘no’. Under questioning from the parliamentary Exiting the European Union Committee the Brexit minister David Davies </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/15/brexit-government-assessed-impact-leaving-eu-deal-david-davis"><span style="font-family: inherit;">openly admitted that the Tory government has done absolutely nothing to establish what the economic consequences of a retaliatory self-destruct Brexit would be</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span></div><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is an absolutely extraordinary admission. The Tory government have openly admitted that the central plank of their so called ‘negotiating strategy’, is to threaten to do something they haven’t even bothered investigating the consequences of. This is a textbook example of shambolic government recklessly playing fast and loose with the economic future of the entire country. They don’t care if what they are threatening causes an economic catastrophe. They don’t care so much that they haven’t even lifted a finger to establish how bad the economic fallout could be! It was bad enough that after six tedious months of waiting for it, the Tory ‘negotiating strategy’ was nothing more than ‘do what we say or we will press the self-destruct button on our own economy’, but it is now absolutely clear that they didn’t even bother to investigate how big the economic bomb is, nor whether the explosion will actually do more damage to the UK than the EU! Surely such reckless ineptitude should make it clear to even the most ardent of Brexiters that the likes of Theresa May, David Davies and Boris Johnson are not competent to steer the UK through Brexit safely. </span></span></div><h3 style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Why Can’t Parliament Stop Self Destruct Brexit? </span></h3><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Tory Party have used Brexit to engineer an extraordinary anti-democratic coup. It was slightly ironic that unelected peers in the House of Lords put up the fight in favour of democracy and parliamentary sovereignty, but their ‘meaningful vote’ amendment to the absolute insult of a Brexit bill was defeated in the House of Commons as the Tory’s (assisted by UKIP, the DUP, the UUP and six appalling democracy hating Labour rebels) cleared the path for Theresa May to scrap the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and set herself up as an autocrat who is beyond democratic accountably. This defeat for democracy means that the Tory government will be able to make up the terms of Brexit as they go along with no parliamentary scrutiny or approval whatsoever. Theresa May and her three incompetent Brexiters will decide the future direction of the UK and there will be nothing parliament can do to stop even the most brazen of their machinations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Brexit situation is now utterly farcical. </span><a href="http://openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/the-mechanics-of-leaving-the-eu-explaining-article-50/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">According to the terms of Article 50</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, the European Parliament will get a democratic vote on the post Brexit agreement, but the Tory’s have engineered it so that the British parliament won’t! If things get complicated (which they probably will) and the post Brexit trade deal becomes what is known as a </span></span><a href="http://en.euabc.com/word/668"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Mixed agreement</span></span></a><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">’ it won’t just be the European Parliament that gets a vote, but the individual parliaments of the remaining 27 EU member states will all get a democratic vote on whether they agree to the terms. If the EU fail to cave into Theresa Mays ridiculous demands then she will simply trigger the retaliatory ‘self-destruct Brexit’ and parliament will not be able to hold her to account over it. The only way for this anti-democratic exercise to be stopped now will be through the courts, but if the judges decide to reassert that parliament is sovereign, they will undoubtedly be inundated with death threats by the far right and be labelled ‘enemies of the people’ by everyone’s favourite Tory propaganda rags: the Sun, The Mail, and the Express. The Tory’s have quite clearly voted to scrap the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in favour of giving Theresa May the authority to do whatever she likes. There is absolutely no way that such an anti-democratic power grab could be achieved within the framework of the EU. It’s only by quitting the EU that such anti-democratic hard right extremism has been enabled. </span></span></div><h3 style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">EU Citizens are being used as bargaining chips.</span></h3><div style="border-image: none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Before the safeguard aimed at guaranteeing the UK parliament a democratic vote on Brexit was removed, the Tory’s won the vote by 335-287 and scrapped the other lord’s amendment to ensure that </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/theresa-may-doesnt-deserve-any-mates-in.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theresa May doesn’t use the lives of the estimated 3 million EU citizens in the UK as bargaining chips in her dangerous game of making empty threats to the EU</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The amendment that the Tory’s scrapped did nothing more than require the government to bring forward proposals about how they plan to protect the rights of EU citizens living in the UK. It’s absolutely clear from the way the Tory’s scrapped this amendment, that they see these people’s lives as nothing more than bargaining pieces that they can use to squeeze the EU with. The Tory’s have shown utter contempt for the concerns of all the EU citizens that live, work, and have families in the UK. They simply don’t care about the worries, stresses and anxieties that they are causing so many people by refusing to quell the uncertainties over their futures. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from making a clear demonstration to EU citizens living and working in the UK that the Tory’s couldn’t care less about them, another implication from this decision is that the EU are likely to further harden their negotiation stance. If the Tory government are likely to keep the rights of EU citizens living in the UK hanging by a thread, the EU are hardly likely to go into the negotiations prepared to offer Theresa May anything like the ridiculous demands she and her mates have come up with.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Using people’s lives as bargaining chips is disgusting, and indicated that the Conservatives are completely unwilling to go into the EU negotiations in good faith. The consequences are that millions of UK based EU citizens will end up feeling like the country they live in doesn’t care about them, and that by treating EU citizens in this way the Tory’s are pissing off the EU member states and making the impending threat of a catastrophic ‘self-destruct’ Brexit more likely than it already was!</span></span></div><h3 style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></h3><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the Tory’s are setting up an economically and socially ruinous Brexit. The problem is that it is going to be incredibly difficult to fight back against this slow motion march towards hard Brexit because anyone who dares to question what Theresa May and the three Brexiters are up to these days gets drowned out by the shrieking of militaristic Brexiters. Any people who try and hold the Tory government to account or even question proceedings, gets immediately shouted down as ‘traitors’ or ‘sore losers’ and much worse. In a toxified political environment like this, where an awful lot of people are so ideologically weeded to Brexit that they will viciously support it no matter how obvious it becomes that Brexit under Theresa May is a lose – lose situation.</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-58621598494424037122017-03-27T02:37:00.000-07:002017-03-27T02:37:20.188-07:00How the Far Right are Using the London Terrorist Attack to thier Advantage <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--IV38yo98Bc/WNjdLYQ-kpI/AAAAAAAAAsg/67LYUCSDkqMtyVZxk3zFz1W6t09Pi3v9gCLcB/s1600/big-ben-478948.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--IV38yo98Bc/WNjdLYQ-kpI/AAAAAAAAAsg/67LYUCSDkqMtyVZxk3zFz1W6t09Pi3v9gCLcB/s320/big-ben-478948.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The attacks on Westminster on Wednesday 22nd of March, came as an unspeakable shock to many, since the attack many have been bravely posing their tributes and condolences to the victims of this cowardly attack. It saddens me that I have to come on here and talk about yet another terrorist attack, but as I have said before it is important that we as a society respond in a way that promotes tolerance and that does not pander to the people who carried out the attack. This is why it saddens me so much to see the attacks being used by some people for the exact opposite: to promote an agenda of hate and intolerance.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The terrorist who attacked Westminster has now </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39363297"><span style="font-family: inherit;">been confirmed as British born</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, yet before his origins were even revealed, the extreme right were absolutely desperate to use the attack to further fuel their divisive anti-immigrant rhetoric, and misleadingly portray London as a weak, scared and divided city. The UKIP and Leave EU bankroller Arron Banks was one of the first far right opportunists to use the attack to promote his fanatical and divisive anti-immigration views. Long before it was known that the terrorist was in fact a man from Kent, Banks started blabbering on about immigration and borders, retweeting extreme right comments and slinging abuse at people who dared try and argue against his warped worldview. Nigel Farage, as another extreme right politician, quickly joined his former bankroller in using the attack as a golden opportunity to spread his contentious, racist nonsense. Instead of waiting for information about who the attacker was, he charged onto fox news to opportunistically weave the Westminster attack<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>into his own fanatically right wing narrative. To show such callous disregard for the victims of such an unspeakable attack by immediately going on a rant about immigration is one thing, but to simply assume the attacker was a refugee or immigrant without knowing the facts, just goes to show how far these people will go in pursuit of their far right agenda. They don’t care about facts, because they know that they can just say any old drivel on fox news and that their adoring followers will naively lap it up. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s not just anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments that the extreme right used this attack to promote. They also wanted to instil fear in people. Tabloid Columnist and Professional Garbage-talker Katie Hopkins also saw it as her duty to scuttle off to fox news to tell the Americans (and most likely their equally fanatically right President) that ‘people in London are cowed, people are afraid, and people are not united’. I am sorry but I can feel nothing but utter disdain for this view. Hopkins was clearly lying through her teeth, because the vast majority of Londoners are not cowed into submission, they are getting on with their lives and they are refusing to let the terrorists win. London survived the Blitz; London Survived the IRA attacks in the 70s, 80s and 90s; London Survived the appalling 7/7 bombings and London will survive this. The extreme right want to portray London as a weak city that is quivering with fear because it helps sell their far right agenda to a lucrative and impressionable audience, but the reality is completely different. The real stories are the remarkable displays of bravery in the immediate aftermath of the attack, and the stoic solidarity of Londoners since. The extreme right who misleadingly portray London as weak scared and divided are shameful opportunists and bigots who know that their lies and prejudices are far more marketable to a right wing audience than the truth; the stoicism and resilience of London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The extreme right don’t care about waiting for facts before they start spouting off. The extreme right don’t care about the reality that most Londoners are determined to get on with their lives rather than wallowing in fear or self-pity. The extreme right are absolutely desperate to use anything they can to spread their toxic ideology of fear and division. The irony here of course is that by behaving like this, they are doing the work of Islamist fanatics, who want to make us live in abject fear of their attacks and create even more anti Muslim prejudice in the West. The extreme right love to see themselves as defenders of our culture, but by deliberately spreading fear hatred and division they are actually reacting in precisely the way the Islamist fanatics want them to react. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, the extreme right and the Islamist fanatics both share the same vision. They both crave a violent and destructive clash of civilisations. They are the opposite sides of the same disgusting coin. The Islamist fanatic ISIS supporter who celebrates the attack on London as a victory is no different to the extreme right fanatic in Britain who is full of glee because they see the attack as another opportunity to spew their divisive and hate filled rhetoric.</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-67275772340416960212017-03-20T04:22:00.000-07:002017-03-20T04:22:32.390-07:00The Case For 'IndyRef2' <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zd_0L5sD16k/WM-7X9fhYSI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/KtNOKuMp9McjsSBVusK3OUF8V-jAdBPyQCLcB/s1600/shutterstock_218092108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zd_0L5sD16k/WM-7X9fhYSI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/KtNOKuMp9McjsSBVusK3OUF8V-jAdBPyQCLcB/s320/shutterstock_218092108.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced her intention to seek a second referendum on Independence from the UK. I supported the ‘yes’ camp the first time around because I agreed with the Scottish Nationalist line of argument that Scotland are getting totally shafted by a corrupt, self-serving and astonishingly dishonest bunch of Westminster elites. Secondly, during the first referendum, the Tory’s blatantly lied through their teeth, promising that Westminster would not dare to jeopardize Scotland’s place in the EU.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Nobody can argue that there hasn’t been a drastic change in conditions, and nobody can argue that the unionist campaign fearmongering was justifiable, given that the consequence of Scotland voting ‘no’ was the exact same consequence that they attributed to the ‘yes’ vote. The SNP have a complete democratic mandate to hold a second referendum given that their manifesto states that they should hold one if ‘</span></span><a href="https://www.snp.org/the_snp_2016_manifesto_explained"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will</span></span></a><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">’. Since then, David Cameron went on to lose his self-serving EU referendum gamble and now Theresa May is intent on dragging Scotland out of the EU (and the single market) against the will of the Scottish electorate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Anyone arguing that Scotland shouldn’t have a second referendum in light of the dramatically changed circumstances and the outrageous campaign lies last time around, is basically saying that they don’t want another referendum because they know that they are going to lose. </span></span></div><h3 style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The Tory Perspective</span></h3><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since Nicola Sturgeon announced her intention to hold a second referendum, Theresa May has since turned down the calls, Instead preferring to trot out a number of meaningless platitudes about how we are ‘stronger together’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Theresa May’s staggeringly hypocritical excuse for this was that ‘It would be unfair to ask people to make a crucial decision without the information they need to make that decision’. Do I even have to explain the numerous holes in this statement? The Tory’s have just put Britain through a toxic and divisive referendum campaign filled with lied about ‘staying in the single market’ and ‘giving more money to the NHS’, in which the end result has been an authoritarian prime minister who is trying to carry out a savagely right wing version of ‘hard Brexit’ without first consulting parliament! Secondly, wasn’t it The Tory’s (as well as Labour) who were proliferating much of the misinformation and the fearmongering during the first referendum debate? For Theresa May to come out and say so brazenly that she doesn’t want Scotland to vote on something that they do not know enough about is not only staggeringly ironic given the context, but it shows the utter contempt that Westminster have towards Scotland that they don’t think the Scottish people are capable of making a decision. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For more evidence of Westminster’s contempt towards the scots we can look at some of the ways they have behaved since the referendum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Despite voting remain, </span><a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/02/07/government-easily-defeats-four-article-50-amendments"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scotland has had to sit back and watch as they have had all their article 50 amendments voted down</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, including one to ensure that the Scottish parliament is consulted on Brexit. Theresa May wants the Brexit process to be conducted solely by English Tory’s, and the English right wing press are baying with delight<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>at the prospect of side-lining Scottish interests. It’s such an ugly and shambolic mess that they know they can’t possibly win a second time around, which is why Theresa May and the Tory’s will likely do everything in their power to stop a second independence referendum from actually happening. </span></span></div><h3 style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The Labour Perspective</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span></h3><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, Brass necked the Tory stance on a second Scottish independence referendum seems to be, </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/labour-lib-dems-strategic-ineptitude.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Labour seem to want to match it with strategic ineptitude</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. The Labour Party know that aligning themselves so closely with the Tory’s during the 2014 independence campaign was the main casual factor in losing 40 of their 41 Scottish constituencies at the 2015 general election. They also know that abjectly failing to differentiate their stance on Scottish Independence from the Conservatives allowed the Tory’s to beat Labour down into third place in the Scottish parliament elections in 2016 by posing as the real unionist option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Given that Scottish Labour have lost so much already by imitating the Tory’s so cravenly, you would have thought they’d do everything in their power to make sure they differentiate their message this time around. Instead however, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/kezdugdale/status/841261269361545217"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale tweeted exactly the same rhetoric as the Westminster Tory’s about another Scottish independence referendum being ‘divisive</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">’. The tweet was met with an absolute hail of condemnation, but Scottish Labour clearly aren’t listening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>They are stuck in a self-righteous bubble of delusion that they are absolutely right, and the Scottish electorate are a bunch of idiots for rejecting them. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems highly unlikely that Scottish Labour will abandon their strategy of treating the Scottish electorate with utter contempt as they crudely ape the Tory Party, but in my view their only remaining hope is to clearly differentiate themselves from the Conservatives, perhaps by doing something that is actually observably different like pushing for a devolution Max option on the ballot paper. If they, on the other hand, stick with their failing tactic of imitating the Tory’s then they will simply hasten their already rapid decline into political oblivion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><h3 style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The SNP Perspective</span></h3><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, Theresa May refusing to allow Scotland to hold a second referendum on independence is not so much of a problem for Scotland, as it is for the Tory’s, who will look extremely embarrassed and humiliated when a second referendum does actually get held. The SNP and pro-independence Scottish greens have a majority in the Scottish parliament. Together they could pass legislation for a second referendum and force the Westminster Tory’s into a lose-lose situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Either the Tory’s would allow another official independence referendum, which they would likely lose given their open contempt towards Scotland and the ongoing Brexit shambles they created, or they try and deny the public a second referendum which would be a total PR disaster for them. The Scottish government could simply run their own referendum as an ‘advisory referendum’ (like the Brexit vote) and then endlessly cry ‘will of the people’ when they win. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If the Tory’s try and stop the Scottish government from holding an advisory referendum they would definitely lose it. The SNP would just campaign on a platform of English Tory’s are trying to silence Scotland – Vote Yes. There is absolutely no way that even the Tory propaganda machine could compete with that, especially since all of their efforts to delegitimise the unofficial referendum would end up significantly lowering the turnout amongst Tory/UKIP voters and the rest of the unionists. </span></span></div><h3 style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></h3><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The case for a second referendum on Scottish independence is overwhelming. By opposing it so vehemently, The Tory’s and Labour are simply making it more likely that the referendum will be successful, while pushing themselves into political obscurity in the process. Good luck Scotland, don’t bottle it this time!</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-64522087933398498642017-03-14T13:07:00.002-07:002017-03-14T13:07:58.604-07:00The DWP 'Why Havent you Killed yourself?' Scandal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r-0y-AMgWgU/WMhNiAHSQEI/AAAAAAAAAr0/AdDubyBjxa8rQ3o7rWxluYUnFu4Z9gTywCLcB/s1600/Atos_victims_protest-702x336.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r-0y-AMgWgU/WMhNiAHSQEI/AAAAAAAAAr0/AdDubyBjxa8rQ3o7rWxluYUnFu4Z9gTywCLcB/s320/Atos_victims_protest-702x336.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many people are not aware of the appalling way the Tory government have been treating disabled people in the UK. As such, when I tell people that </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/07/uk-austerity-policies-amount-to-violations-of-disabled-peoples-rights"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the UK government has been severely condemned by the United Nations for their systemic violations of disabled people’s rights</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, they tend to react with shock or disbelief. They also tend to have a hard time accepting that the dehumanising Work Capability Assessment regime for disabled people has been </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/psychological-torture-wca-atos.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ruled unlawful in the courts for the way it discriminates against people with mental health conditions</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/reign-of-terror-false-economies.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">costs more in corporate outsourcing fees to administer than it will save in reduced benefit payments</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Similarly, people are especially likely to disbelieve me when I tell them that disabled people are by far the most likely people to suffer from the ‘bedroom tax’ and that people with mental health issues and learning difficulties are disproportionately affected by the draconian Tory sanctions regime (</span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/the-cost-of-tory-malice.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">another brutal Tory welfare policy that will always cost more to administer than it will ever save in reduced benefit payments</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">)</span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In March 2017, yet another scandal erupted about the dehumanising way disabled people are treated in the UK. It is so extreme that again, people really struggle to believe that it is actually happening in a supposedly decent and humane society like Britain: It turns out that the private, profit making companies whose job it is to carry out the discriminatory and demoralising Work Capability Assessments on behalf of the Conservative government have been asking disabled people why they haven’t committed suicide yet. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/Alice__Kirby/status/835209327694737412"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After Alice Kirby tweeted about being given this outrageous line of questioning during her assessment</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, dozens of other </span><a href="https://www.thecanary.co/2017/03/07/more-people-come-forward-in-the-dwp-kill-yourself-scandal/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">disabled people have come forward to make testimonies</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, about how they have been asked equally horrific ‘why haven’t you killed yourself yet’ type questions during the various degrading assessment processes the Tory’s put them through. One of the corporate outsourcing giants conducting the disability assessments called Maximus has even admitted asking disabled people questions like ‘Can you think of any reason why you are not committing suicide’ , giving the excuse of ‘</span><a href="http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/maximus-admits-using-brutal-and-dangerous-suicide-questions/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is in line with our policies and guidelines<span style="font-style: normal;">’</span></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you completely fail to see why this is such a shocking and dangerous line of questioning for people with disabilities you might as well stop reading this blog post now and go back to living in your little bubble of denial about the absolutely disgusting way in which the Tory government and their corporate outsourcing chums have been treating the sick and disabled. It’s so obviously sick and dangerous to ask people with severe mental and physical disabilities why they haven’t killed themselves yet, that I feel like I don’t even see why I should really have to explain it, but it needs to be said. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Asking people with severe disabilities, mental or physical, why they haven’t killed themselves yet is obviously going to increase the risk of suicide. Also, In a country where the media are constantly forcing down our necks the wretched idea that disabled people are a burden on families, the economy or wider society, these sorts of questions are only going to serve to make disabled people self-confirm their pre-existing doubts about themselves. The whole process of treating disabled people like they are scroungers who deserve to be put through one dehumanising assessment regime after another is bad enough, but actually asking people why they haven’t killed themselves yet during these appalling processes is so obscene that it is actually beyond my abilities as a commentator to discuss how utterly disgusted I am by it. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mainstream media have totally neglected to mention this dreadful scandal. During my research for this article the only coverage I could find was from small, fellow independent media sources (</span><a href="http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2017/03/09/maximus-admits-using-brutal-and-dangerous-suicide-questions/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Black Triangle</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><a href="http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/maximus-admits-using-brutal-and-dangerous-suicide-questions/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Disability News Service</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><a href="http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/03/08/yes-lets-have-an-inquiry-into-dwp-benefit-assessors-encouraging-suicide-but-make-it-independent/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Vox Political</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><a href="https://www.thecanary.co/2017/03/07/more-people-come-forward-in-the-dwp-kill-yourself-scandal/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Canary</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another Angry Voice</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">) and from social media testimonies of people who had been asked the question in their assessments. At the time of writing, this scandal has been covered in the alternative media for over a week, and yet nobody in the mainstream press even seems remotely bothered about holding the government to account over it. It’s astounding that nobody from the mainstream press has bothered to even try and give this appalling story the attention that is so desperately needs. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps even worse than the ‘why haven’t you killed yourself’ questions being asked, is the way that the mainstream press in their ignorance have abjectly failed to in their duty to hold the Tory’s to account over this scandal. Of course ordinary people are going to continue having doubts that disabled people are being systemically abused by the Tory government and their corporate outsourcing chums if the mainstream press refuse to involve themselves in the subject, leaving the job of holding the government to account to small independent bloggers and websites like me and the others listed in this article.</span> </span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-54636523653500969372017-03-08T14:59:00.000-08:002017-03-09T11:13:06.949-08:00Movements and Revolutions #7 - The Socialist Origins of International Womens Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3mbbNjCj5I/WMCMkkKrHvI/AAAAAAAAArk/txnO2-nOVq8xpMftSMoHVa2Xan5HmiMbwCLcB/s1600/Red-Flag.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3mbbNjCj5I/WMCMkkKrHvI/AAAAAAAAArk/txnO2-nOVq8xpMftSMoHVa2Xan5HmiMbwCLcB/s320/Red-Flag.png" width="202" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is being published on International Women’s Day. Aside from the passive aggressive comments from sexists asking ‘when is international men’s day?’ (November 19th by the way). It is a day to celebrate all that women contribute to the world and to demand that they have equal rights with men. Despite this, few people are aware of its origins.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1894, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/">Clara Zetkin</a> took to the pages of social democratic magazine ‘Die Gleicheit’ (equality) which she had founded three years earlier to write about the liberal feminism that had emerged as the mainstream in Germany at the time. ‘Bourgeois feminism and the movement of proletarian women’ Zetkin wrote ‘are two fundamentally different social movements’. The way she saw it, liberal feminists were pushing basic reforms, without questioning the very existence of capitalism. By contrast, working women, through class struggle in a joint fight with men of their class sought to end capitalism. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By 1900, women in the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/">German Social Democratic Party</a> (SPD) were holding biannual conferences immediately before the party congress – conferences where all burning issues of the proletarian women’s movement were discussed.&nbsp; This ideological strength turned the German Socialist Women’s Movement into the backbone of the International Socialist Women’s Movement: <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1907/is-conferences.htm">In 1907 the International conference of socialist womenconvened in Stuttgart, Germany for its first gathering</a>, claiming as its first demand ‘the right to universal female suffrage, without qualifications of property or any other barrier that may hinder the working class of availing themselves of their political rights’. The invitation to the next Socialist Women’s Conference -&nbsp; This year to be held in Copenhagen – exhibited the same attitude: ‘We&nbsp;urgently call on all the&nbsp;socialist parties and organizations of socialist women&nbsp;as well as on all the&nbsp;working women’s&nbsp;organizations&nbsp;standing on the foundation of the class struggle to send their delegates to this conference’. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They were in good company across the Atlantic as well. The previous year, socialist working women in the US had designated February 28th ‘Women’s Day’, an event that the Copenhagen conference reported had ‘awakened the attention of our enemies’. Following the example of their American comrades, the German delegate Luize Zietz proposed the proclamation of an ‘International Women’s Day’ to be celebrated annually. Zetkin seconded the proposal, as well as one hundred other female delegates from seventeen countries. The resolution read</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘In agreement with the class-conscious political and trade union organizations of the proletariat of their respective countries, socialist women of all nationalities have to organize a special Women’s&nbsp;Day&nbsp;(</span></i><em><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 150%;">Frauentag</span></em><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">),&nbsp;which must, above all, promote the propaganda of female suffrage.&nbsp;This demand must be discussed in connection with the whole woman’s question, according to the socialist conception’</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the delegates, supporting the socialist conception meant not just promoting female suffrage but labour legislation for working women, social assistance for mothers and children, equal treatment of single mothers, provision of nurseries and kindergartens, distribution of free meals and free educational facilities in schools and international solidarity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Simply put, International Women’s Day was from the very start a socialist conception. While it’s immediate objective was to win universal suffrage for women, its aspirations were much grander: the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism, abolishing both wage slavery of workers and the domestic slavery of women through the socialization of education.</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The First International Women’s Day</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The First International Women’s Day was celebrated not on March 8th but on March 19th, 1911. The Date was chosen to commemorate the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/The-revolutions-of-1848-49">1848revolution in Berlin</a> – the day before was every year to the ‘fallen heroes of March’. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Germany, Two and a half million flyers urging participation in Women’s day were distributed. ‘Comrades! Working Women and Girls! March 19 is your day. It is your right’ it read ‘Behind your demand stands Social Democracy, organized labor. The Socialist women of all countries are in solidarity with you. March 19 should be your day of glory.’ Trumpeting the battle cry ‘forward to female suffrage’ more than a million women – mostly, but not exclusively, women – organized in the SPD and the unions. They even took to the streets demanding social and political equality. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Around the world working women set aside a day for themselves. In 1911, Women workers in the United States, Switzerland, Denmark, and Austria chose March 8th as women’s day. Counterparts in France Holland, Sweden, Bohemia, and Russia soon added themselves to the list of celebrants. Celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8th took hold as a worldwide practice in 1914. A Famous sign emblazoned with the words ‘Forward with Female Suffrage’ in which a women dressed in black waves the red flag, marked the occasion. In Germany – overcome with war hysteria – police banned the poster. The fourth international Women’s Day turned into a mass action against the imperialist war that would erupt three months later. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Three years later, March 8th would take on a special significance when the February Revolution convulsed Russia. Russian working women played a leading role in the upheaval. Despite the opposition of every party, including the Bolsheviks, they turned the International Women’s Day celebrations into an upheaval that carried away the whole working class of Petrograd and gave birth to the Russian revolution.</span> <o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">What War Wrought</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">War broke out in august 1914 inaugurating a new era in the Development of the Socialist Women’s movement.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The entire Second International – and therefore socialist movement worldwide – split along national lines, succumbing to chauvinism. In Germany, The SPD (and its affiliate, the general commission of Trade Unions) adopted a ‘social peace’ policy, making critical demonstrations verboten. Those who rebelled and celebrated Women’s Day suffered repression at the hands of the police. In early November 1914, Clara Zetkin issued an appeal to the ‘socialist women of all countries’ where she spoke out strongly against the war and in favor of mass actions for peace. As Part of this opposition to imperialism, Zetkin led the third and final Socialist Women’s conference in 1915. As imperialist war raged all around them, the conference issued the internationalist battle cry ‘War on War’. But principled opposition was in short supply. Upon returning to Germany, Zetkin was arrested.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Conclusion</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today International Women’s Day serves as a reminder to women around the world to stand up for what they believe in. However, if we are to seek equality, it is important to remember where and how the celebration started.</span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7286828486928001499.post-29446099343431030492017-03-03T03:31:00.000-08:002017-03-03T03:31:43.785-08:00On Copeland. Where Next for Labour?<br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qi7rxuszVnc/WLlTzgZuEfI/AAAAAAAAArU/jjs7jM55_y0QeaBlVL8zTMBCI_0j6yTugCLcB/s1600/58b049e9c36188c1568b456a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qi7rxuszVnc/WLlTzgZuEfI/AAAAAAAAArU/jjs7jM55_y0QeaBlVL8zTMBCI_0j6yTugCLcB/s320/58b049e9c36188c1568b456a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In light of labour losing their seat in Copeland, many on the social democratic left are wondering how to react to the result. Indeed, even those on the radical left should be disgusted at the fact that Britain has to hand another seat to the most vicious and hard right incarnation of the Conservatives that we have seen in years (I will leave you to debate when the Tory’s were the most awful).</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Firstly, before I get on to the mistakes labour and Corbyn made and question what road they should take in the future, to make sure we don’t muddy the waters here, let me clear up some of the myths about the Copeland by-election. Copeland had been Labour Party territory for decades but anyone claiming it was anything other than a marginal constituency is dealing with pure political fiction. The Labour high point in Copeland was in 1997 when Jack Cunningham won the seat with 58% of the vote. </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_(UK_Parliament_constituency)"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ever since then Labour have been on a downwards trajectory in Copeland</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Even if Corbyn’s Labour had managed to stop this decline, they would still have lost the Copeland by-election. 42.3% of the vote was enough for Jamie Reed to win in 2015 but it would have only been good enough for second place in 2017 because the Tory candidate bragged 44.3% of the vote. The real story in Copeland then is how the Tory’s managed to leapfrog labour to such an extent that Labour would still have lost had they stopped their steady decline in the area. The answer is the collapse in the UKIP vote. The real story is that Ukippers are abandoning the party in droves in order to throw their support behind the Tory’s now that Theresa May is pursuing a hard right ‘More UKIP than UKIP’ political agenda. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Despite this it would be completely wrong and misguided to say that Jeremy Corbyn bears absolutely no responsibility for this result. To give you some background on where I stand, I supported Corbyn firmly when he was first elected as leader of the Labour party in 2015. A healthy dose of social democracy was needed to drag Labour away from the ‘austerity light’ agenda that lost them the 2015 general election. I even supported Corbyn during the Cynical and badly timed coup attempt in 2016. Sure the Labour Leaders support of Remain had been lukewarm at best, but the worst thing for the labour party, either now or then, would be a swing to the right, which is exactly what the coup attempt was threatening. Understandably then, I was desperate for the Labour leadership to succeed in cutting through the barrage of criticism and abuse it was inevitably going to receive to the mainstream media and take its message straight to the electorate.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What was witnessed in Copeland last weekend was a failure of communication, not ideas. With a Tory Party that is increasingly hostile to minorities and the poor mixed with the impending reality of a hard Brexit, social democratic reforms of renationalising our infrastructure, giving more money to our NHS and taxing corporations, are more needed than they have ever been. Copelands fractured maternity wards are proof enough of this. However, ideas are only ever powerful in politics when given power. Jeremy Corbyn could have the best ideas in the world, but without using his platform to spread those ideas in a creative and effective way, no one will bat an eyelash. As the old saying goes, if you do not define yourself you will be defined by your enemies. This is exactly where Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has let itself down. David Cameron defined Corbyn for the electorate when he stood on the stage at the conservative party conference and accused Jeremy Corbyn of trying to inflict a ‘terrorist sympathising, Britain hating ideology on the country’. The Sun defined him when on Remembrance Day they accused him of being unpatriotic because apparently he didn’t bow low enough at the cenotaph. And because may people had nowhere else to look they bought into these lies. This is not to label most people stupid. Given the bombardment of misinformation we receive on a daily basis it is easy to fall for the faux populism of the conservatives, however antithetical to your interests it may be. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So where next for Labour? Although we cannot compare a by-election to a general election, it is clear that if they carry down the same strategical path that Labour are headed for another catastrophic election defeat in 2020. I think we all know what will happen then. Jeremy Corbyn will inevitably have to stand down as leader of Labour, and the party will take a drastic swing to the right. From that point on, leftists will be slowly purged from the party. Anyone who dares propose the slightest left wing policy will be immediately shouted down. ‘We tried that’ the voices of the Blairites will ring out ‘look what happens when the left have a say’. All this will result in Britain becoming a very dark place to be a socialist indeed.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What Jeremy Corbyn and those who care about Labour being a real alternative to the Tory’s will need to do to prevent this from happening is come up with a clear and effective strategy in order to take a radical left wing programme to the voters and defeat the Tory’s in 2020. On the other hand, if Jeremy Corbyn feels he cannot come up with an effective strategy, it is up to him to reach an agreement with the parliamentary labour party where he can stand down and someone on the left can be on the ballot paper to lead the party. If either side is at all stubborn then the risk is the party will die. A few weeks ago Jeremy Corbyn tweeted from his twitter account that ‘the fight starts now’. Ideally, the fight starts two years ago but as we cannot reverse time we are going to have to take now as our starting point.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To those of you who still have complete and utter faith in Corbyn, you have to ask yourself if you are committed to an idea or an individual. None of this blog post aims to diffuse the revolutionary spirit that we felt when we knew we had a left wing leader of the labour party again. It is to save it from completely disappearing it all together, and if doing that means having a different left wing leader of the labour party then so be it. Neither is this a betrayal of Jeremy Corbyn. He is a principled, moral and courageous man; when LGBT rights were still a controversial issue he was firmly supporting them, when Nelson Mandela was being labelled a terrorist he was supporting him, he opposed the Iraq war on the basis that it would be a humanitarian disaster and do it was: even at the last prime ministers questions he was lambasting Theresa May for her governments horrific treatment of disabled and autistic people. In the event of Jeremy Corbyn standing down, I would certainly like to see him in a role where he can help decide policy.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I understand that everyone might not find what they read here particularly pleasant. I don’t either. I am however proposing what I believe to be the best. And as I am sure we can all acknowledge, in the battleground of politics, an uncomfortable truth is always better than a comfortable lie.</span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></div>Libsoc Blogshttps://plus.google.com/100901512467282931280noreply@blogger.com0